Greater Wellington operates a network of 39 automatic river monitoring stations. The information collected is important for floodwarning, water management during droughts, and detecting long-term trends in our environment.

At all stations, river levels are monitored continuously and at some sites water temperature is also monitored. River level is converted into river flow using a 'rating curve'. At some stations there is no rating curve, so only river level data are available. 

The data are logged on a regular basis (usually every 5 or 15 minutes) and then uploaded to our database via telemetry (radio or cell phone tranmission) every 2 to 3 hours. This is "raw data" because it has not been passed through our quality checks. Once it has been checked it is moved to a secure archive and is referred to as "archived data".

The data we provide for this website is a combination of archived and raw data. The archived data is shown in black and the raw data is shown in red. This ensures that the data we are providing is as accurate and up to date as possible. Should you require the information in a form other than how it is presented here, please contact us and we can usually provide it within two working days.

Greater Wellington's river flow monitoring site Hutt River at Taita Gorge