Optimisation of the Waikato Regional Council tide gauge network

Report: TR 2021/25

Author: Stephen Hunt (Waikato Regional Council)

Waikato Regional Council (WRC) run a network of 5 tide gauges around the region. These tide gauges are used to monitor sea levels which are an important parameter for environmental management and understanding coastal hazards.

This report reviews the WRC tide gauge network and provides suggestions on how to optimise the network for WRC requirements and considers relevant policy, regional hydrodynamics and the data quality. The work was undertaken because historically the development and management of the WRC tide gauge network has been uncoordinated with no clearly documented rationale for decisions made and a coherent plan is needed to manage the network and the data in the future. Suggestions for the future management of the tide gauge include: (1) the location and positioning of the gauges, (2) the way the data is sampled, (3) the instrumentation used, (4) the length of the record and (5) other data that needs to be collected as well as water levels.