UK and New Zealand in knowledge sharing project

The Water Research Centre (WRc) is working with New Zealand water engineering consultancy, ProjectMax “to help water utilities and central government invest in their water infrastructure, and share knowledge and expertise.”

According to WRc, a New Zealand government project to improve delivery of drinking water, wastewater and stormwater services – called the Water Services Reform Programme – “is not dissimilar to the river basin management structure in the UK, with ten new publicly-owned water service entities (WSEs) taking over services currently operated by local councils.”

The WRc-ProjectMax partnership is led by WRc associate consultant, Jo Parker, said: “Many of the issues faced in New Zealand will be familiar to people working in the UK water industry, and vice versa,” says Parker. “These include concerns about lack of maintenance of industry assets, the significant impact of climate change, and the quality of river water.

“The formation of a new drinking water regulator has also allowed a fuller picture of drinking water quality across New Zealand to emerge, which has exposed a variety of challenges, some similar and some different to the UK. These issues are some of the drivers for the restructuring of the country’s water and wastewater services.”