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The Waitaki River is a large braided river in the South Island of New Zealand. It drains the Mackenzie Basin and runs south-east to enter the Pacific Ocean between Timaru and Oamaru on the east coast. It starts at the confluence of the Ōhau and Tekapo River rivers, now at the head of the artificial Lake Benmore, these rivers being fed by three large glacial lakes, Lake Pukaki, Lake Tekapo, and Ōhau, at the base of the Southern Alps. The Waitaki flows through Lake Benmore, Lake Aviemore and Lake Waitaki, these lakes being contained by the hydroelectricity dams of Benmore Dam, Aviemore Dam and Waitaki Dam. The Waitaki has several tributaries, notably the Ahuriri River and the Hakataramea River. It passes Kurow and Glenavy before entering the Pacific Ocean. The river lends its name to the Waitaki District on the south side of the river.
The river's flow is normally low in winter, with flows increasing in spring when the snow cloaking the Southern Alps begins to melt, with flows throughout the summer being rainfall dependent and then declining in the autumn as the colder weather begins to freeze the smaller streams that feed the catchment. The median flow of the Waitaki River at Kurow is . Waitaki Catchment Hydrological Information, Table 3.2 Waitaki Catchment – Flow Statistics at Flow Recording Sites, February 2005, Ref. ME582, Ministry for the Environment website, retrieved 22 November 2007.
The first major infrastructure developments on the river were made between 1881 and 1914 with the construction of road and rail bridges at Kurow and Waitaki Bridge.
The middle of the river bed was a historical political boundary between Canterbury and Otago. The term "south of the Waitaki" is often used to refer to the Otago and Southland Region regions as one common area (the two regions share Otago Province and ethnic relationships that make them distinct from the regions to the north of them).
The river is popular for recreational fishing and .
The Lake Waitaki dam was built first, between 1928 and 1934, and without earth-moving machinery, followed by the development of the Aviemore Dam, which created Lake Aviemore, and then Benmore Dam, which created Lake Benmore. Lake Pukaki was initially dammed at this stage to provide storage and flow control. A small station was also installed on Lake Tekapo, with water taken through a tunnel to a power station below the level of the lake.
The original Waitaki power stations discharge water back into the Waitaki River, which then forms a storage lake for the next station in the chain.
The three power stations are (commissioned/capacity/annual output):
In the 1960s, work was started on the Upper Waitaki project. This project consisted of taking the discharge from the original Tekapo (A) station through the Tekapo Canal to Tekapo B station at the edge of Lake Pukaki. The dam at Pukaki was increased in height. Water from Pukaki is then transferred into the Pukaki Canal, which meets the Ohau Canal from Lake Ōhau into Ōhau A station and Lake Ruataniwha. The Ohau Canal continues beyond Lake Lake Ruataniwha to Ōhau B midway along, before emptying through Ōhau C into Lake Benmore.
The stations are (commissioned/capacity/annual output):
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