The Bay of Plenty region was named on account of its abundant food resources and this continues to hold true today. The region is a key producer of kiwifruit and avocados, has significant forestry resources and a pulp paper mill, and as well as general cropping and farming it supports an intensive dairy industry. Thus there is significant demand for water and increasingly groundwater.

With the aim of better understanding groundwater recharge across the region, the Bay of Plenty Regional Council has installed a network of barrel lysimeters. After a decade in deployment and recent expansion of this network, I will discuss some of the issues involved in the installation and collection of lysimeter data in the Bay of Plenty with the objective of creating a discussion to establish National Environmental Monitoring Standards (NEMS) for groundwater recharge lysimeter monitoring in New Zealand.