Building Bridges from Data

How shared catchment evidence enables councils, utilities, and communities to act together

Across New Zealand and the UK, councils and utilities are investing heavily in cleaner water outcomes. The constraint is rarely ambition or intent. It is alignment.

Catchments are complex systems with multiple stakeholders, pressures from numerous activities, and shared expectations that water will be protected. Communities hold deep local knowledge. Councils and utilities carry statutory, operational, and public-value responsibilities. Too often, each group is working from a different picture of what is happening in the river.

Over several years, councils, utilities, and industry partners have funded our work to address that gap. Not by adding more reports or fixed infrastructure, but by creating shared, catchment-scale evidence that all parties can use with confidence.

The Catchment Engagement Package is a structured version of this delivery model. It reflects what has been implemented in practice across urban catchments in Auckland, community-led restoration catchments in Nelson, rural systems in Southland, and now in the UK.

The Problem Our Approach Is Designed to Solve

From a council or utility perspective, fragmented evidence creates real delivery risk.

• Spot sampling meets compliance needs but misses system behaviour

• Community observations surface issues early but are hard to rely on formally

• Technical reports are often disconnected from lived catchment experience
  

The result is familiar: contested priorities, delayed decisions, duplicated monitoring, and strained relationships between institutions and communities.

What everyone working with, or living near water, has consistently asked for is a shared evidence base that is credible, accessible, and useful for prioritisation and engagement.

How the Approach Works in Practice

This work has been delivered alongside council, research, and utility programmes around the world over the last few years.

Rather than installing permanent infrastructure, floating monitoring units are self-deployed by the group, with our support, at representative locations and moved over time. We work with the groups to define objectives, and identify sites. Typical sites include upstream reference locations, downstream of known pressures, and key confluences where questions arise.

This mobility allows all stakeholders to:

• Build baselines efficiently

• Reuse data across programmes and questions

• Respond to emerging issues or restoration actions

• Avoid locking capital into fixed assets prematurely
  

The monitoring covers dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH, turbidity, and conductivity, managed under a Data-as-a-Service model. Telemetry and portals are part of our packages, with calibration, QA and QC, and field servicing are handled centrally in our dedicated servicing centers. This makes sure that the data is defensible, and reduces operational overhead for both funders and community partners.

Why this works

This approach works for all stakeholder in catchments because it delivers practical value.

For councils and utilities, shared catchment evidence improves visibility, supports better prioritisation of interventions, and reduces friction between operators, regulators, and communities. It creates a single picture of catchment condition that can be used for planning, engagement, and decision-making.

Industry partners, including dairy companies, have funded this work to support catchment-level understanding, demonstrate good practice, and engage constructively with communities.

Community groups can gain understanding, share communications, and target their remediation efforts The emphasis is on collaboration and progress, working together from the same base..

Shared evidence early costs less than misaligned action, loss of public trust, contested narratives, or poorly targeted spend later.

What This Enables for Councils, Utilities, and Industry partners working in catchments

The deliverables are clear and defensible.

Enables:

• A conversation with the community, and a shared approach

• A shared, catchment-scale picture of current condition

• Early visibility of stress, recovery, and seasonal behaviour

• Improved prioritisation of restoration and operational interventions

• Evidence that supports engagement with communities and regulators

• Reduced duplication of monitoring effort across programmes

• Data that can be reused over time rather than collected once
  

This supports statutory obligations, operational planning, and builds public trust without increasing delivery complexity.

What This Enables for Catchment Groups

For catchment groups, the same evidence serves a different but complementary purpose.

Enables:

• Confidence to speak using data others trust

• A common picture that aligns with council and utility frameworks

• Clear identification of priority reaches and pathways

• Targeted remediation, and proof that it's having impact

• Greater community engagement

• Evidence of impact over time rather than anecdote alone
  

The data is accentuated by human knowledge, and

A Scalable Approach, Not a Standalone Project

The Catchment Engagement Package is not intended to sit in isolation. It is designed to bridge community insight and institutional decision-making.

Over three months, it typically establishes a baseline and highlights pressure points. Over six months, it reveals patterns of stress and recovery that inform targeting. Over twelve months, it provides a robust evidence base for collaboration, evaluation, and long-term planning.

Across NZ, and now the UK, we've seen that when councils and utilities invest in shared evidence, communities align, conversations improve, and action becomes more coordinated.

Cleaner water outcomes depend on many stakeholders working together. Building that alignment starts with building bridges from data.