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Survey reveals New Zealanders have major concerns about water quality
For the first time Water New Zealand and Arup have surveyed New Zealanders on their attitudes to water and published the results in the 2017 New Zealand National Water Survey.
With almost 5000 responses nationwide, the survey report is complemented with an interactive online tool developed by Arup that you can easily use to find out what people think about a range of important issues relating to water in your area.
The survey is the first attempt of its kind to understand attitudes, priorities and perceptions of a wide cross section of consumers around water issues.
“The water industry is facing constant challenge over how we plan and manage our resources. Listening to customer feedback is vitally important to understand and respond to the changing needs of our communities,” says Water New Zealand Chief executive John Pfahlert.
Arup’s project manager for the survey, James Peveril, says the survey has been a fantastic opportunity to ‘take the pulse’ of the nation.
“Every-day Kiwis are not often given the opportunity to have their say on water issues in a meaningful way. More than 4500 people took time to respond to the survey. This is similar to the uptake for last year’s Australian Water Outlook Survey, and is a strong result given the difference in population between the two countries. ”
James Peveril
The survey asked respondents to think about a range of important subjects, including drinking water quality, water security, pricing, customer service, waterways, and the future of water in New Zealand.
The survey report presents the findings of the survey and includes analysis of issues across the following key areas: Consumer outlook; water use and efficiency, the price of water; customer experience; future of water; and healthy waterways.
The data visualisation tool (best viewed on desktop) allows interested parties to easily view and interrogate the survey data. The tool allows users to break down the data by geography and other demographics, enabling in-depth analysis of what consumers think about water. We believe that this tool will prove valuable to water suppliers, industry groups and the government - particularly in relation to understanding regionally based findings.
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The survey also aimed to help get people talking about water issues and what is important to them. Key issues and areas that the survey considers include water efficiency, the price of water, the importance of drinking water quality and customer service.
Daniel Lambert, Arup’s Australasia Water Leader, presented the key results at the New Zealand Water Conference and Expo recently in Hamilton.
“We were particularly excited about the prospect of identifying the issues of national significance to water consumers. There will also be scope to compare and contrast consumers’ attitudes towards key issues with those on the other side of the Tasman and beyond - to work out what makes New Zealand unique and where we might learn from others. ”
Daniel Lambert Former Australasia Water Leader
