River water quality: Phosphorus, modelled, 2016 - 2020

Note that this is a large dataset so is provided as a shapefile, and will need a GIS application to view.

Adapted by Ministry for the Environment and Statistics New Zealand to provide for environmental reporting transparency. Dataset used to develop the "River water quality: phosphorus" indicator (available at www.stats.govt.nz/indicators/river-water-quality-p...).

Phosphorus in river waters is one of five parameters that provide an overview of New Zealand’s river water quality and how it is changing over time. Phosphorus is an essential nutrient for plants and is a natural component of healthy rivers. Agricultural and urban land use, and infrastructure such as wastewater treatments plants, can add more phosphorus to waterways, which can increase algae growth and biomass. This in turn causes deterioration of river habitats.

This dataset includes:

• concentrations of total phosphorus (TP) and dissolved reactive phosphorus (DRP) modelled for New Zealand’s river length, expressed as percentiles for the period of 2016–2020

More information on this dataset and how it relates to our environmental reporting indicators and topics can be found in the attached data quality pdf. Summary report available at environment.govt.nz/publications/environment-aotea...