Some part of the country - including the capital - have been plagued by issue with water leaks. File photo. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Public health experts have found New Zealand's water infrastructure system is leaking at a rate far higher than in leading European countries - wasting about $122 million each year.
Aotearoa's leakage levels - at 21 percent - were worse than countries such as the Netherlands at 5 percent and Germany at 6 percent, new research from the Public Health Communication Centre showed
Co-author University of Otago professor Nick Wilson said this highlighted the fact New Zealand needed to invest much more in its water system infrastructure.
"We also compared countries using the more sophisticated Infrastructure Leakage Index (ILI). New Zealand ranks near the bottom of 15 OECD jurisdictions in this index, with a median ILI of 2.8 compared to Denmark's 0.7," he said.
"The leakage we estimate is costing the country $122 million a year when you use the price of water that's been used around the country when councils have introduced water metering. So this is a terrible waste and that estimate doesn't even account for all the problems associated when water leakage leads to slips and to collapses of footpaths and roads and so on," he said.
Wilson said the leakage also posed public health risks.
"One of the concerns is that when there's breakages in pipes and if the water system undergoes pressure fluctuations you can actually get dirt coming into the piping system. Usually that's not such a problem because there's chlorination and so on, but when you look at the international experience you can see that there have been infectious disease outbreaks from pipes that are leaking and pipes which are damaged," he said.
Wilson said local government needed more funding to invest in water systems.
"Some of that could come from central government or local government needs better capacity to raise funds for investing in water infrastructure," he said.
The research authors said it was encouraging that there had been recent progress in managing leaks in places such as Wellington and also that nearly three-quarters of New Zealanders surveyed supported water metering.
"We need much more water metering so that we can detect these leaks and really fine tune the system," Wilson said.
"We have the knowledge and technology to actually get this water leakage rate down to very low levels such as we've seen with these European countries."
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