1. NIWA Water Resources Archive and Climate Database - An Overview David Wratt & Charles Pearson

2. 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)

3. 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

4. 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)

5. 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

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

7. 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)

8. 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, …)