By Professor Naresh Singhal, Director, Water Research Centre, University of Auckland | Waipapa Taumata Rau

The New Zealand water sector faces several major challenges. In response, the Water Research Centre has been established to provide leadership and research excellence in water science and engineering. 

Much of New Zealand’s water infrastructure is aging. It is estimated that $100 billion will be required over 30 years for upgrades to address issues like leaking pipes, outdated treatment plants, and inadequate stormwater systems. Additionally, extreme weather events are increasingly straining water resources and infrastructure. Balancing investment needs with affordability is an ongoing struggle, as local councils often lack sufficient funds. Finally, attracting and retaining skilled personnel to operate and maintain the complex water infrastructure is becoming increasingly difficult.

New Zealand’s water quality is generally believed to be good, with contaminants only likely to impact drinking water safety and ecological health in specific regions; however, a major study by Our Land & Water on water pollution in 650,000 river segments, 961 lakes and 419 estuaries found that four key contaminants – E. coli, nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment – need to be significantly reduced across most regions to meet National Policy Statement guidelines. While current monitoring practices can detect long-term nutrient and clarity shifts at most sites, increased sampling is necessary to capture E. coli changes in a timely manner. Doubling the sampling frequency can enable E. coli detection across most sites, but doing so will increase the annual cost by more than four times.

Climate change is likely to further exacerbate the threats to water quality and associated health risks. Higher temperatures in the United States have led to toxin-producing cyanobacteria proliferation, and the occurrence of more frequent harmful algal blooms in lakes and reservoirs, posing a significant public health issue. Similarly, the waterborne diarrhoeal disease pathogen cryptosporidium is showing climate-linked habitat range expansion into previously colder mountain lakes worldwide. Cryptosporidium is transmitted through drinking water, making its global spread concerning. As New Zealand has an abundance of freshwater bodies (3800 lakes larger than one hectare), climate change poses challenges for our nation. Addressing the climate effects on waterborne pathogens and toxins requires urgent action, but cohesive efforts to systematically deal with these issues are currently lacking in New Zealand.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment recognises that New Zealand must transform its research, science and innovation systems to safeguard national wellbeing across economic, social, health, environmental and cultural domains. Aligned with this goal, the civil engineering departments at the University of Auckland and University of Canterbury have jointly established the Water Research Centre (WRC). This new centre aims to provide leadership and research excellence in water science and engineering. The WRC has five key objectives:

Enhance water infrastructure resilience to climate change.

Improve water treatment and resource recovery efficiency.

Create innovative assessment tools to evaluate and mitigate escalating threats to water resources.

Shield communities from extreme weather events.

Train new generations of water management professionals.

We are developing several core technologies to safeguard public health and the ecological integrity of aquatic ecosystems from emerging threats and contaminants. These technologies include:

smart technologies to quantify and treat water pollutants (e.g., microplastics, PFAS, pharmaceuticals, toxins and heavy metals)

high-throughput genomic analyses and innovative computational pipelines

formulating prediction frameworks for the emergence of antimicrobial resistance and waterborne pathogens

autonomous platforms for rapid threat detection.

We have synthesised our aspirations as the SOPHIA framework. SOPHIA, meaning wisdom, stands for Scalable Omics-driven Platform for Holistic Integration and Analysis. The SOPHIA framework involves massive environmental data collection across micro to field scales, computational analysis and modelling to generate actionable insights on emerging risk profiles. This drives the development of cost‑effective solutions and policies to safeguard societies and environments from potential harm.

WRC welcomes like-minded organisations and individuals to join us in developing the science, technology and policy to protect Aotearoa New Zealand’s waters and communities.