Water restrictions have covered the South and some have tightened considerably after water use skyrocketed during the past couple of weeks.
The highest water restriction possible was put on residents in Arrowtown last weekend when the reservoir got below 50% capacity. Use of sprinklers, water systems, hoses or contractor takes were restricted at any time.
Thankfully the plea to reduce water in Arrowtown was listened to and the restrictions were partially lifted just 24 hours later, but it did highlight the large amount of water used by the public.
In the Queenstown Lakes area, an average of 440 litres of water is used per person per day, well above the national average of 281 litres a day.
But surprisingly that is not the highest in the south.
Waitaki has 11 water schemes with the Oamaru scheme supplying about 16,000 people in Oamaru and areas south to Moeraki.
For this scheme, the usual average daily water use per head of population was about 720 litres. Recently, average daily use peaked at 1030 litres per head of population, per day. Following publicity around water use, it has now reduced back to around 900 litres.
Waitaki District Council acting water services manager Michael Goldingham said the district experienced dry and warm conditions which lead to higher-than-normal usage for this time of year.
"We haven’t had these conditions for some time, but it is a normal thing to expect in our district. We have good resilience in our water system to cope with this increased usage, though it does put a strain on our water treatment plants and it does naturally increase risk if anything else should go wrong or the dry and hot conditions continue," he said.
"At this stage we are asking people to not waste water and to think about their water usage at this time, to report any leaks they find and generally be water savvy," Mr Goldingham said.
In Central Otago, water usage is at 586 litres per person, per day, well ahead of Queenstown Lakes. That is right across the whole region and includes irrigation. But with about 132 cumecs coming down the Clutha River under the Alexandra bridge, at the moment there should be enough water to last.
The water use in Queenstown Lakes almost doubles in summer. In July it sits at 266 litres per person, per day and that rises to 528 litres in January.
A Queenstown Lakes District Council spokesman said water use should be looked at by every resident.
In Dunedin, the council could not supply average use but the target was to have 240 litres used by a person per day. In Invercargill, the estimate was 300 litres per person used daily.
Balclutha came near the bottom of the pack with just 182 litres of water used per person, per day.
Water use
Average per person, per day (litres)
Oamaru 720
Central Otago 586
Queenstown 440
Invercargill 300 (estimate)
Dunedin 240 (target)
Clutha 182
