Lower Waikato floodgate upgrades

Funded: $1.2m
Total cost: $2m
Project starts: 2024/25
Project ends: 2026/27

This project will identify and upgrade floodgate assets east of Huntly in the Mangawara catchment, to ensure they continue to meet their required level of service to protect productive agricultural land.

Project benefits 
Upgrading floodgate infrastructure is critical to ongoing flood protection, for example, maintaining headwalls mitigates erosion of productive farmland and replacing pipework enables correct waterflows through the catchment, minimising ponding and upstream backflow issues. 

This work will maintain the level of service of the assets for the purpose of agricultural production, while providing improved resilience to increased frequency and severity of rainfall events due to climate change.

Continued pastoral and agricultural production supports the local, regional and national economy, including through employment. 

Local contractors and suppliers are also being used for design, materials and implementation of the project.

Status update:

• Requirements for each asset have been scoped and planning is progressing on renewals work.
• Construction started in the new year 2025.

Floodgate before, above, and after upgrade, below.