Airsheds

  1. Environment »
  2. Air »
  3. Airsheds
On this page:

An airshed is a legally designated air quality management area.

In New Zealand, regional councils and unitary authorities have identified areas to be managed as airsheds for the purposes of the national environmental standards for air quality.

Polluted airsheds

Over a 5-year period (2008 to 2013) Putāruru, Taupō, Te Kūiti and Tokoroa regularly exceeded the national environmental standards for PM10 and were classified as polluted airsheds under Regulation 16D and 17(4) of the Resource Management (National Environmental Standards for Air Quality) Regulations 2004.

While Tokoroa remains classified as polluted, Te Kūiti, Taupō and Putaruru were found to meet the criteria under Regulation 17(4) of the standards for being re-classified as non-polluted as of 10 December 2016, 27 June 2018 and 14 March 2019 respectively. The classification for the Taupō airshed has reverted back to polluted since 27 May 2021. The classification for the Te Kūiti airshed has reverted back to polluted since 23 June 2021.

Under Regulation 17, the standards require us to assess all resource consent applications for substantial discharges of PM10 into polluted airsheds to determine whether offsets will be necessary.

More information on exceedances of PM10 levels

Regional airsheds and their boundaries

There are 21 airsheds in the Waikato region. 

  • 20 urban airsheds. You can see these listed below. An asterisk (*) indicates that the airshed is currently being monitored by Waikato Regional Council. Expand the location to view a boundary map.
  • 1 'rest of the region' airshed, made up of the areas not covered by the listed urban airsheds.

Many of our airsheds are known, or likely, to have levels of pollutants that exceed the national environmental standards for air quality. Some airsheds are also identified based on factors such as:

  • number of people living in the airshed now or in the future
  • unique weather patterns and geography
  • local air emissions, such as local industrial activity, that need to be specifically considered and managed.