Lake Pukaki

The Lake Pukaki is a lake on the South Island of New Zealand. He is the largest of three roughly parallel in a north-south direction lakes on the northern edge of the Mackenzie Basin. The other two are the Lake Ohau and Lake Tekapo.

All three lakes formed by retreating glaciers, the valley was blocked by the deposit of its terminal moraine. The inflow of glacier water lakes are a typical blue color produced by fine particles from the abrasion of glacier subsurface.

The catchment area of the lake is 1413 km ². The surface of the lake is in season from 82 km ² and 87 km ² and has a fluctuating between 518.2 m and 532 m above sea level in the lake level above the sea.

The lake is fed at its northern end of the Tasman River, a braided river that has its source in the Tasman Glacier and Hooker Glacier, near the Aoraki. From the south side of the lake, you have a good view of the mountains 70 km north location.

The outlet of the lake, the Pukaki River, located at the south end of the lake. The lake is the upper part of the hydroelectric project on the Waitaki River. Near there is the drain several dams and canals that connect it to the Lake Tekapo and Lake Ruataniwha. The water level was raised twice to gain more storage volume. The island Five Pound Note Iceland was flooded, which was earlier shown on New Zealand's five-pound note.

Currently, the operationally possible fluctuations of the water level be at 13.8 m, which corresponds to a stored energy of 1600 GWh. Along with the 770 GWh of Lake Tekapo, this is more than half of the stored water power in New Zealand.