NIWA has calculated estimates of environmental conditions across the entire New Zealand river network, including hydrology, ecology and water quality metrics. This interactive webtool allows you to map and interrogate these estimates on a simplified representation of the river network.
Click on the Map options tab to get started or refer to Help tab for more information about the different features and answers to some frequently asked questions.
All data unless specifically stated is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand License and must be attributed back to its original creator.
Whitehead, A.L., Booker, D.J. (2020). NZ River Maps: An interactive online tool for mapping predicted freshwater variables across New Zealand. NIWA, Christchurch. https://shiny.niwa.co.nz/nzrivermaps/
For more information, please see Whitehead, A.L., Booker, D.J. (2019) Communicating biophysical conditions across New Zealand’s rivers using an interactive webtool. New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research 53: 278–287. [pdf]
Please email us at [email protected], for more information about NZ River Maps or to provide feedback. We welcome comments about how to make this webtool more useful.
This webtool was developed by Dr Amy Whitehead and Dr Doug Booker, with funding from NIWA’s Environmental Flows (eFlows) Programme. Research on hydrological indices, wetted width, bed sediment cover, fish habitat and invertebrate indices was also funded by eFlows. Estimates of fish presence/absence and whio habitat suitability were funded by the Department of Conservation and the University of Canterbury, respectively, while research on water quality state and consented water use was funded by the Ministry for the Environment.
Whilst NIWA has used all reasonable endeavours to ensure that the information contained in this website is accurate, NIWA does not give any express or implied warranty as to the accuracy of the information contained herein. National estimates at unvisited sites are designed to represent regional patterns and should not be used to replace site-specific studies. This website has been reviewed internally by NIWA and meets NIWA standards for website delivery.
Use these menus to choose which prediction variable is displayed on the map and click
Update map
. Predictions are grouped within variable type.
Select an option below to choose which rivers are visible on the map.
- All catchments:
View all rivers, with more detail plotted as you zoom into the map and then click
Update map
- Whole region:
Click on a reach to view all rivers ≥ stream order 3 within that region.
- Single catchment:
Click on a reach to view all reaches within that sea-draining catchment.
Use these options to transform or group the data and change the colour of the riverlines and click
Update map
.
Select the Create Colour Bins option to categorise numeric data into three classes. The popup slider can be used to set the breaks.
Select a reach to draw the predicted flow duration curve.
Flow duration curves are generated using the methods of Booker and Woods (2014).
Booker DJ, Woods RA. 2014. Comparing and combining physically-based and empirically-based approaches for estimating the hydrology of ungauged catchments. Journal of Hydrology 508:227-239. [View online]The data provided in NZ River Maps is made available to download free of charge to allow you to use it for your own research. All data unless specifically stated is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand License and must be attributed back to its original creator. See the About tab for a suggested citation for NZ River Maps.
NIWA’s national estimates are based on statistical models that relate observed patterns with landscape-scale patterns and then generate estimates on the entire New Zealand river network. The estimates represent conditions in the recent past. A range of hydrological, ecological, environmental and water quality-related metrics have been plotted onto Version 2 of the National River Network (River Environment Classification, RECv2.4). Each river reach is coloured by the estimated value of the selected variable, with the line thickness representing the Strahler stream order. A description of each variable can be viewed when the variable is selected in the Map options tab. A reference and link (where available) to the relevant paper or report is also provided for more information about how the metrics were calculated.
The Map Panel allows you to visualise a range of spatial data, including NIWA’s national estimates on the New Zealand river network. Zooming into the map will provide higher resolution data. After zooming or panning the map, press the Update map button on the Map options tab to redraw the map and see more detail.
The Map options tab allows you to change how the national estimates are viewed by switching variables, and allowing better differentiation between sites by changing the colour scheme and/or transforming the data. Use the Select view mode option to toggle between viewing all rivers or all reaches for a selected catchment.
The Plot flow tab allows you to view the estimated flow duration curve for the selected reach. Enter a discharge flow into the text box to calculate the predicted time that this flow won’t be exceeded.
The Download data tab allows you to download NIWA’s national predictions for your own use. Select the metrics of interest and the appropriate spatial scale. You will be able to view the data table prior to download. Data downloads are provided as .csv files. A metadata file that describes your downloaded data is also available for download as an .html file. All data unless specifically stated is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand License and must be attributed back to its original creator. Please cite the original source of the data provided in the metadata.
The predictions shown in NZ River Maps represent the outputs of models that have been made at the national scale. While these predictions are as accurate as possible, given the data used to make them, national predictions at unvisited sites are designed to represent regional patterns and should not be used to replace site-specific studies.
NZ River Maps provides the ability to visualise national-scale predictions of metrics describing hydrology, ecology, water quality and landscapes. These predictions have been generated by NIWA and represent a static snapshot of predicted values across all New Zealand river reaches. Land, Air, Water Aotearoa (LAWA) presents actual or observed data on fresh water and other environmental domains at a number of monitoring sites around New Zealand.
NZ River Maps has been developed to allow users to visualise predictions for all of New Zealand. However, for practical reasons, we have restricted the stream orders that are visible at each zoom level to speed up the plotting on the map. You can view the data at a higher resolution either by 1) zooming closer into the map and pressing the Update map button or 2) selecting a single catchment using the Select view mode option.
NZ River Maps is dedicated to mapping NIWA predictions that have been made for New Zealand rivers. Therefore, this website does not show any predictions for lakes.
The catchment names provided in the National Predictions dataset were derived from river names identified by the Soil Conservation and River Control Council in 1956. Where these are not directly named after the commonly-used river name, they typically describe the location of the outlet to the sea. For example, the Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere catchment describes all waterways that are upstream of Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere.
The national river network was designed to represent confluences; where two rivers join as they flow downstream. A few rivers in New Zealand have diffluences; where the river splits into two channels as it flows downstream. These diffluences are not well represented in the river network due to ambiguities in their upstream characteristics (e.g. their upstream area). Estimates downstream of diffluences (e.g. the Lower Rakaia and Clutha rivers) are therefore problematic.
We've found that NZ River Maps sometimes runs into issues when using Internet Explorer and will ask you to reload the page. To avoid this potential problem, we recommend that you use either the Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox browsers. If you continue to have problems, please let us know at [email protected] so that we can try and resolve the problem.
