NIWA Water Resources Archive and Climate Database - An Overview

David Wratt & Charles Pearson

What are they?

• Climate network & database• Hydrometric network & database• River water quality network and

database• National coverage, coordinated

operations, communications• NIWA backbone + contributions by

many others• Discrete databases (Oracle, Tideda,

Excel / Access)• Developing common web front end• FRST $3.5M (Global processes,

sustainability)

Climate Network & Database

• 208 open climate stations (118 automatic). Includes soil moisture network, 45 reference climate stations

• 654 open rainfall stations• 5 open upper air stations• Many closed climate & rain

stations• Climate observations from various

Pacific islands• Oldest records back to 1870s• Many stations voluntary or

collaborative, + MetS archive

Hydrometric network & database

• River and lake water levels (15 mins); River flows (~monthly); Sediment concentrations; Rainfall (6 mins); Soil moisture levels

• 14 NIWA field offices• NIWA: 230 open water level stations• Partnership funding of $1.5m pa from

hydropower companies• Regional and district council data

• ~250 open water level stations• Overall, >1200 NZ water level records

(open and closed stations)

Water Quality Network & Database

• Initiated 1989: 77 river sites• Monthly sampling• >14 water quality variables

plus flow• Also macrophyte-

periphyton-macroinvertebrate measurements at 66 sites in summer

• Baseline (32) and impact (45) sites

What is it used for (Climate examples) ?• Climate monitoring*, research• Other research (agriculture,

ecosystems, ...)• NIWA updates and outlooks• Resource assessments• Engineering (wind energy, air quality,

building design, air conditioning, drainage design, ...)

• Hazard assessment• Legal• School projects

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-1.5

-1

-0.5

0

0.5

1

Year

Temperature Anomaly Compared To 1961-90

* Some required by international agreement, e.g. WMO, UNFCCC

Who uses it (climate examples) ?

• National Climate Centre Staff• Researchers (outside + NIWA)• Engineers, agricultural sector,

local government, police, lawyers, ...

• sql: 50 NIWA users, 50 outside• 1290 non-internet requests 01/02• 700 educational queries 01/02

(<00/01 because of web educational data tables)

Challenges & Developments

• FUNDING: Static since 1994 (ie decreasing real$ support from FRST), NIWA subsidy

• Demand for more detail (space, time)• Increasing near real-time 24/7 demand• Paper archives of old non-electronic data• Requests from schools etc (unfunded)

• Move to user-friendly web access• Value added services (ClimateNow,

gridded data sets, climate surfaces, collaborative land-use studies, …)