Nick Wilson: Professor of Public Health on the leaking in the water infrastructure

New Zealand's water infrastructure system is leaking at a far higher rate than global leaders. 

Otago University research shows 21% of piped water is being lost. 

In comparison, the Netherlands loses 5% and Germany 6%. 

The leaks are also wasting around $122 million each year. 

Professor of Public Health Nick Wilson told Ryan Bridge that New Zealand has a network of very aging pipes that aren’t being fixed in the same way they do in Europe. 

He says that leaking and breaking pipes are actually a concern from a public health perspective, as defects can increase the risk of disease outbreaks.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
New Zealand's water leakage problem. We know we've got one.
Turns out it's far worse than what we had anticipated.
New research suggests one hundred and twenty two million bucks
worth of the stuff as being lost from our pipes
each year. The worst European countries have leakage rates of
final six percent, ours twenty two percent. Nick Wilson, University
of Otago, Professor of Public Health, Nick Good to have

(00:20):
you on. Is it as bad as it sounds?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
It's pretty bad when we do these international comparisons, and
the value of doing international comparisons really highlights what can
be done when a country actually invests properly in its infrastructure. So, yeah,
we're at twenty two percent of our pipe water leaking,
compared to Netherlands at five percent, Germany at six percent,

(00:47):
and lower rates in Australia and various parts of the
US as well. A terrible waste that Well, when we
compared a leakage index number, they were just over one,
whereas we were two point seven. So twice is better.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yeah, So basically we're just not fixing our pipes like
they do in Europe.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yes, we're not investing in the long term where we've
got a network of very aging pipes which are leaking
and breaking. And that's actually from a public health perspective
that's concerned because defects and pipes can increase the risk
of disease outbreaks.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
All right, so we know what we need to do
to fix it. But obviously we've gotten a whole bunch
of reasons why we dined, including funding of our local governments, etc.
Is there anything new or brilliant that you have found
that might help us?

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Now you're right that it is really an investment and
funding issue. But actually one of the new things was
there's been big advances in technology for detecting leaks, various
acoustic systems inside pipes and above pipes with GPS monitoring,
so we've got the technology to actually identify leaks and

(02:09):
that's really been a big improvement. But also water metering.
We've got more and more evidence now that water metering
is an important part of the solution. It helps detect
the leaks and it makes people more conscious off the
value of water.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
All right, Nick, thank you so much for that. Nick Wilson,
Professor of Public Health at the University of Otago. During
that interview, we probably lost Dart and I let's say,
two hundred thousand liters of water as we were talking.
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