Record Breaking Attendance At Stormwater Conference

The Water New Zealand Stormwater Conference 2023 gets underway in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland today with a record attendance.

Almost 600 stormwater professionals are meeting this week for two and a half days of keynote and technical presentations, workshops, site visits and case studies.

The conference is being opened by Local Government Minister Kieran McAnulty.

Water New Zealand chief executive Gillian Blythe says there’s been huge interest this year, partly due to the devastating effect of recent flooding in many parts of the country.

“It’s now clear that we need to take stormwater management seriously to ensure a more climate-resilient future.”

She says that in terms of investment, stormwater has been the “neglected cousin” compared to drinking and wastewater.

The Water New Zealand National Performance Review showed that in 2021/22, investment in stormwater was roughly a third of that spent on water supply and wastewater networks across participants – 36 percent and 33 percent respectively.

“Aucklanders invested $186 million on stormwater networks. Outside of Auckland, regions covered in the review invested only $283 million, compared with $782 million on drinking water and $850 million on wastewater.

"We clearly need to invest more, but we also need a much more planned and nationally led approach to stormwater and flood management including land-use.

"This will mean a big shift in our thinking, planning and where we build.”

“As well as presentations and discussion on building better infrastructure, tackling skills shortages, Te Mana o te Wai and making room for water, we’ll be looking specifically at the recovery after the recent flooding and our readiness for future events."

See the conference programme.

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