Te wainuku Groundwater
Horizons plays a key role in protecting and monitoring the quality and levels of the hidden treasure beneath our feet: groundwater. This critical resource helps support the creatures who call our region’s waterways home and the many other ways people value water. Groundwater supports people’s livelihoods, enabling farmers to irrigate pasture and crops and quench their livestock’s thirst. Groundwater is also a large contributor to the region’s drinking water supplies.
About groundwater
As the water flows between these different environments, it can also transport contaminants. When groundwater levels decrease, it can lower the water table, impacting river flows, lake levels, and wetlands.
The water cycle
Groundwater quality
Horizons monitors groundwater quality to understand how it might impact ecosystems and its suitability for other uses, especially where groundwater and surface water are closely linked.
Quarterly, Horizons sample for many indicators of groundwater quality across 34 monitoring bores, including:
E. coli
Heavy metals (manganese, arsenic, iron)
Nitrate-nitrogen
Dissolved reactive phosphorus (DRP)
Chloride
Electrical conductivity (a measure to estimate the salinity of water)
We also participate in national monitoring programmes for water quality, groundwater age, and emerging contaminants such as pesticides, herbicides, and PFAS (also known as forever chemicals).
Communities can check out the state and trends of our monitoring network for groundwater quality indicators (excluding heavy metals) on the Land Air Water Aotearoa (LAWA) website.
For PFAS monitoring results for the area around Ohakea Airbase and other PFAS investigations in our region, check out our PFAS page.
Groundwater levels
Horizons’ groundwater allocation framework, implemented through the consenting process, aims to provide for our region’s precious freshwater species and habitats while supplying our communities with access to the water they need to survive and thrive.
Horizons monitors groundwater levels monthly at over one hundred bores across the region to assess seasonal and long-term fluctuations. This data helps us understand how natural processes (such as climate variability) and water abstraction influence groundwater levels.
We also monitor consented groundwater use for regulatory purposes and to ensure efficient and reasonable use of water.
Communities can check out groundwater level data from across our monitoring bores on the Water Quantity section of the LAWA website.
Consents for bores and groundwater takes
Over nine thousand bores are registered across the Horizons Region, with those still in use abstracting groundwater for various purposes, as guided by the council’s groundwater allocation framework.
Landowners require consents to construct a new bore, and for groundwater takes over 50 m3/day.
Go to the Consents and Compliance section of our website for more guidance on applying for bore and groundwater take consents.
Notify us
Permitted activities
Notify us if you are abstracting groundwater under a permitted activity.
This information helps us improve our knowledge of groundwater volumes across the region, enabling more informed resource management decisions.
Unused bores
If there is an unused well or bore on your property, please let us know!
When the community tells us about their unused wells and bores, they help us better understand the risks to groundwater health and where additional groundwater volumes may be available to other water users.
Help keep the region's groundwater safe by ensuring abandoned wells and bores are properly decommissioned. Qualified well drillers provide well and bore decommissioning services to landowners. These experts will seal your unused structure according to New Zealand’s environmental standards, which is the most effective way to reduce the risk of groundwater contamination from your well or bore
Let us know about your permitted activity, or unused and decommissioned bore by emailing groundwater@horizons.govt.nz, or calling 0508 800 800.