Nearshore Monitoring

Water quality for human contact recreation Waikato Regional Council now measures bacteria levels (E.coli) in the water at five sites around the edge of Lake Taupo annually. E. coli bacteria is a useful indicator of the health risk for human contact recreation activities, such as swimming or water skiing. They also measure chlorophyll a, Secchi depth, total phosphorus and total nitrogen at the deep water sampling site near the middle of the lake. They do this to monitor the whole lake’s water quality long-term, and its suitability for plants and animals to live in.

“The graph shows the percentage of samples from the lake that met or exceeded our guidelines for excellent, satisfactory or unsatisfactory water quality for ecological health and contact recreation.”

READ MORE