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A tale of two storms Waiology May 10

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By Martin Doyle

The rainstorm near Nelson on 21 April, 2013, was one of the most intense ever measured in New Zealand, and caused considerable flooding through urban Stoke and Richmond. Just 18 months prior, another storm also caused significant damage to the same area. It would be tempting to draw parallels between the two storms, but in fact they provide an interesting contrast.

Comparison of the 2011 and 2013 storms, measured at the Tasman District Council office. Rainfall totals over the period of graph are nearly identical.

Comparison of the 2011 and 2013 storms, measured at the Tasman District Council office. Rainfall totals over the period of graph are nearly identical.

The figure to the right shows the hourly rainfall from the onset of rain for the two storms. The total rainfall over the 24-hour periods was 192 mm for the 2011 storm and 191 mm for 2013. Despite this similarity, in December 2011 the rainfall was much less intense.

The 2011 storm caused land slippage, debris flows and choking of riverbeds. The flooding that occurred was often because rivers channels were filled with sediment and were unable to carry the flows. Much of the damage that occurred was due to slips rather than flooding, and the most costly damage occurred on roads rather than buildings.

In contrast, during the 2013 storm the sheer volume of water exceeded the design capacity of the culverts and drains, and resulted in widespread flooding. Damaging flows originated not only from rivers and creeks, but also from sheet flow running overland off the Richmond and Stoke foothills. Stormwater systems had little hope of draining this water away, and it continued downhill in pathways previously unused to water flow. It accumulated where culverts and grates were blocked or overwhelmed, and backed up in areas behind streets, highways, landscaping, or natural contours. The principal source of damage was water flowing through buildings and homes.

Outwash fans – the accident waiting to happen

Elevation contours for the Richmond foothills. The outwash fans are the fan-shaped lobes across the middle of the image.

Elevation contours for the Richmond foothills. The outwash fans are the fan-shaped lobes across the middle of the image.

The suburbs of Stoke and Richmond near Nelson were vulnerable to this type of flooding because, like many places in New Zealand, they are built on outwash fans. Outwash fans are prone to flooding especially when they are steep, as they typically do not have well-defined permanent flow channels. The fans’ very existence stems from many floods over thousands of years depositing sediment haphazardly across the surface.

During the 2013 storm, once free of the usual flow paths, water travelled downhill across the fans in a number of directions, often in areas difficult to predict. The image below displays the contours along the Richmond foothills, and is a good illustration of the lack of defined waterways for each outwash fan. It is easy to see how water displaced from the usual watercourses, or water collected locally by heavy rain, can flow in unpredictable directions.

How extreme was the April 2013 storm?

We know that localised extreme rainfall events occur reasonably often across New Zealand. However it is uncommon for these to occur exactly where a raingauge is located. Because the 2013 storm occurred in an urban area, the extreme rain was measured by not one but six raingauges, with the maximum 1-hour total of 101 mm. Based on all previous data collected across our district, the chance of this occurring in any given year is 0.2%, or “500 to 1″ in betting terms. The common way of expressing this is to say this is a 500-year event, but this incorrectly implies that the storm will happen only once every 500 years.

The most extreme rainfall over 1 hour measured in New Zealand, a total of 134 mm, occurred high in the Southern Alps in the Cropp Valley, in the Hokitika River catchment. Many of the greatest rainfall totals measured in New Zealand have occurred in this location, including 682mm over 24 hours, 2927 mm over 1 month, and 18442 mm over a 12-month period.

The most intense rainfalls measured in the world are seen in the warmer climates. Spare a thought for the town of Holt in Missouri, USA, where 305 mm was dumped in the space of 42 minutes in 1947.

[Editor's note: Here is some TV news coverage with good footage of the flooding.]

Martin Doyle is a hydrologist at the Tasman District Council.

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How to drought-proof New Zealand as droughts get worse Waiology May 03

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By Daniel Collins

For the most part, droughts are natural events. Rainfall and river flows wax and wane, and there will be times when there just isn’t enough water to fully meet our needs, whether to grow crops or to quench a city’s thirst.

Wairarapa drought, February 2013. (Credit: D. Allen, NIWA)

Wairarapa drought, February 2013. (Credit: D. Allen, NIWA)

And when it comes down to it, that’s really the best definition of a drought: when water supply is insufficient to meet demand. If no rain falls on the land, and there is no-one there to go thirsty, is it a problem?

But there is a growing part of drought that isn’t natural. Increases in water use, beyond the capacity of the environment to supply the water, have led to what are called “demand-driven droughts”. Changing climate has been implicated in changing patterns of drought around the world (e.g., Dai, 2013), and this is expected for New Zealand in the future.

So how can we adapt to more frequent and more severe droughts?

One option being discussed in New Zealand lately has been to increase the drought relief from the Government, but the Government has indicated that farmers will not be able to rely on this.

Another option is to build more water storage reservoirs and siphon off some winter river flows for use in spring and summer. So long as this does not increase dependency during times of plentiful rain and is reserved as a form of insurance as a drought approaches, this is a possible option, depending on economics and environmental impacts.

But we shouldn’t become fixated on just one or two strategies. There are many to choose from and it is likely that the best approach will be a balanced portfolio of options, tailored to specific needs and adaptive capacities.

Here is a longer list. For more information, read the recent Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) report on adapting to climate change. No option is favoured over any other, and important economic considerations are beyond our scope.

Around the house. Install dual-flush toilets and don’t flush every time. Switch to a front-loading washing machine. Take marine-style showers: turn the water off when soaping up. Plant your garden with drought-resilient species. Collect rainwater from the roof and stop watering when shortages loom. Sweep the path with a broom, not a hose. Buy food with a smaller water footprint, relative to the growing region’s climate, and reduce food wastage.

Around the farm. Increase water use efficiency. Match crops and livestock (number and species) to the available water. Accumulate feed reserves if seasonal weather forecasts indicate, and start de-stocking before the feed runs out. Build on-farm water storage or collaborate in large-scale reservoirs. Schedule irrigation based on short-term weather forecasts and distribute it based on soil moisture and crop conditions. Buy drought insurance with profits from more productive years.

Around the business. Use materials and products with a smaller water footprint, relative to the producing region’s climate. Reduce the water footprint of the manufactured products, adding value in the process. Identify parts of the supply chain that are more or less drought-sensitive and build in contingency plans based on climate forecasts. Seek drought insurance and relief. Adopt relevant actions from around the house or farm.

Around the town. Encourage water conservation through education, incentives, penalties or user-charges. Reduce reticulation leakage. Landscape green spaces with drought-resilient plants and cease irrigation when shortages loom. Secure alternative sources of water and protect existing supplies. Monitor weather and climate forecasts, and phase in voluntary or compulsory restrictions in advance. Develop long-term plans for residential and industrial growth that can be balanced by future water supplies.

Around the region and country. Develop policies and plans that account for the foreseeable impacts of climate change. Adapt water quantity limits as climate change projections indicate. Encourage personal and industrial water conservation through education, incentives, penalties or user-charges. Provide financial and logistical support for costlier adaptation options. Encourage the use and development of weather forecasts, both short-term and seasonal, among water users. Identify and develop new sources of water (e.g., inter-catchment transfers; inter-seasonal storage). Quantify the available water and how this may change in the future. Foster land covers that have higher water yields, particularly during times of low flow.

In the end, the only sure-fire way to drought-proof New Zealand is to live within our climatic means. Being resilient to some drought, however, may not be so bad. Both would require us to tailor our water demand to the vagaries of the climate, develop land uses and societal practices attuned to the water cycle, and build in flexibility to ramp usage up or down as variable water supplies dictate.

Dr Daniel Collins is a hydrologist and water resources scientist at NIWA.

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Reader feedback invited for Waiology Waiology Apr 09

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By Daniel Collins

Waiology has been running for the better part of two years now, and has just completed a significant series on water governance.

And as Waiology moves ahead, it would be very helpful to know what you think about the blog.

  • Are you happy with the status quo? What’s good or not so good?
  • How useful and informative is Waiology?
  • What topics would you like covered in the future?
  • How can Waiology engage with you and others better?
  • What holds you back from commenting on articles?
  • Are you a subscriber? How do you hear about Waiology articles?
  • Are you a member of the public or the freshwater community? If freshwater, what do you do and where do you work?

Feel free to respond with this online survey, in the comments below, via the contact page, or directly to my NIWA email (firstname.lastname at niwa.co.nz).

Your answers would be extremely helpful in planning Waiology’s next steps. Waiology is designed to be a service for the New Zealand public and freshwater community, and it helps to know what you want!

Your feedback is also very important to me personally. While Waiology does receive institutional support behind the scenes (thanks!), and many people have contributed their time in writing articles (thanks!), my time as editor and contributor is largely voluntary. So the tenor of your feedback will help me decide how much energy I will invest in Waiology from here on out.

Thanks for reading Waiology. I hope you have found it interesting, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Dr Daniel Collins is a hydrologist and water resources scientist at NIWA.

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Water governance in New Zealand: A conclusion Waiology Apr 08

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By Daniel Collins

WaterGovernanceWaiology2013When it comes to managing our freshwaters well, science can provide only part of the solution. It is important to appreciate how much water we have, what quality it is, and how our activities change these things – questions that only science can answer – but it is also important to appreciate what people want from their freshwater, how they value water, and how to broker agreements when people don’t exactly see eye to eye.

This is the domain of water governance. And for the past five weeks we have been examining water governance in New Zealand with particular consideration for the role of science.

We have heard from 16 different people from 14 different organisations offering a variety of perspectives of how water is, or should be, governed. And because science is an indispensable part, we have also examined how the science fits in.

Now to wrap the series up, I shall draw together some of the more salient points from the authors and provide a final list of articles.

Evolution

With the scene set in the introductory post, a common theme throughout the series has been how water governance is evolving. The need to evolve comes about because of increasing social pressure and limited or degrading environmental conditions. We can see this in the genesis and development of the Resource Management Act (RMA), Water Conservation Orders (WCOs), the Canterbury Water Management Strategy (CWMS), the Land and Water Forum (LWF), and the 2011 National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPSFM); Bryan Jenkins depicted this progression well.

Nicola de Wit, Neil Deans and Steve Couper each offer important insights into the RMA. They also point out weaknesses and propose some solutions. At the same time, the Government has proposed solutions of its own, to both the RMA and freshwater policy in general. However, the threat of degraded environmental protection, particularly of WCOs, does not sit well with all NGOs.

Trying to solve some of the RMA’s limitations saw the development of the CWMS and LWF, seeking a collaborative and integrative approach to freshwater governance. A lack of national direction was also met, in part, by the NPSFM.

In terms of conservation, the Department of Conservation has responded to changing pressures with a focus on ecosystem services – leveraging ecological processes in the interests of society (e.g., using wetlands for flood control).

As we approach our socio-environmental limits, there is a greater need to manage what we have more carefully. And as these limits change – whether because of changing societal values as Andrew Fenemor wrote, or as the climate changes as I noted – so too must our methods.

But not everything has changed. Jacinta Ruru pointed out that the issue of water ownership remains unresolved.

Integrate and collaborate

In terms of principles of successful water governance, many were offered during the series, and they were not all mutually inclusive. Two that stand out are integration and collaboration.

The integration refers to treatment of catchments and communities as a whole, right down to the receiving coastal environment as Roger Bannister writes with respect to Auckland. Managing consent by consent will not be successful as environmental limits are approached and, as the saying goes, “we all live downstream”.

As for collaboration, this is where different and perhaps competing groups work together for mutual benefit – the greater good. Rosemary Miller provided a good example of this in regards to the Department of Conservation; David Eder and Ian Whitehouse described how they have made this work in northern Canterbury. The groups will seek a joint understanding of the freshwater situation and of one another’s aspirations. Respect, trust and commitment to the process are critical here, as both Hugh Canard and Chris Arbuckle emphasise. Also important is the provision of financial and logistical support to help the deliberations along and to provide necessary information.

One particularly interesting suggestion, made by Chris Arbuckle, was to use social media to provide some of this support. This is certainly appealing to those of us already active in social media, such as Waiology, though it would no doubt go beyond blogs, Facebook and Twitter.

The role of science

So how are scientists to play our part? Ned Norton and Helen Rouse made several recommendations, challenging though they may be: understand the community’s aspirations; be an effective communicator; inform policy, don’t dictate it. But there is still much scientific research to be done.

Rosemary Miller noted that knowledge to support freshwater conservation objectives is incomplete. Ian Mackenzie called for scientific input in developing Good Management Practices. And Nicola de Wit pointed out that the National Objectives Framework is in need of scientifically based environmental limits. But as Chris Arbuckle points out, we can’t wait for perfect knowledge before acting. Neither nature nor society will wait. And even translating existing science into effective policy cannot be taken for granted.

Closing remarks

And so with the water governance series at an end, I thank all of the authors for their valuable contributions, the commentors for engaging in the conversation, and everyone who dropped by and read what Waiology offered.

I also invite you to share these resources with your friends and colleagues, and to offer feedback on the series and on Waiology in general. How valuable was it to you? What would you like in the future? Your feedback would be very useful and will be used to guide Waiology’s continued services.

Lastly, here is the complete list of the series’ articles:

Dr Daniel Collins is a hydrologist and water resources scientist at NIWA.

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Collaborative water management delivers local solutions in north Canterbury Waiology Apr 04

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By David Eder and Ian Whitehouse

WaterGovernanceWaiology2013In July 2013 the Hurunui-Waiau Zone Committee will notch up three years of work. It was set up as part of the Canterbury Water Management Strategy – a collaborative process for finding local solutions to water issues within an environmentally sustainable framework.

In July 2010 the committee’s daunting task was to sort out water storage in the Hurunui catchment and set water quality limits.

We held dozens of committee meetings, public meetings involving more than 300 people, and received written feedback from more than 120 people before finalising our zone implementation programme of recommendations.

Working collaboratively empowered us to reach consensus decisions on local water issues that are acceptable to a wide range of people. The ZIP now guides local government work programmes and policy to achieve the agreed goals of the Strategy.

The committee’s discussions are often rigorous: as a result the outcomes are well thought out. There are seven community members with wide interests including dairy farming, environmental and conservation management, irrigation development, dry land hill-country farming, rural business and recreational fishing. There are also two Runanga representatives and Hurunui District Council and Environment Canterbury representatives.

We recongise the old way of doing things was flawed; opposing parties could spend years arguing via lawyers or through the courts with little result. The new collaborative way allows us to listen to each other’s view and find solutions.

To allow us time to work collaboratively, moratoria were placed on water consent applications from the Hurunui and Waiau Rivers. This included the Hurunui Water Project’s application to dam the South Branch of the Hurunui River and Lake Sumner for water storage.

The collaborative process identified the Waitohi River as a more environmentally acceptable location for major water storage in Hurunui catchment even though this meant a 40% increase in the cost of the project and in the cost of water delivered to farmers. As a result the Hurunui Water Project applied for consents for water storage in the Waitohi River and the hearings on these began in late March 2013. The HWP application on the South Branch and Lake Sumner received more than 1,000 public submissions – most in opposition. The Waitohi River application attracted only 88 submissions with a clear majority supporting the proposal.

As a committee, it took several months to come to terms with what was required of us, and that each individual needed to leave self-serving views at the door. While it is impossible for everyone to be happy all of the time it is a tribute to everybody involved that we have got to where we are.

In our first year we had nearly 50 meetings and established a very open dialogue with many different groups. This enabled us to develop a programme of recommendations in a very short space of time: it was this tight time-frame that gave us the focus we needed to achieve what others were challenged to achieve.

As a committee we recognised the social and economic prosperity of the zone is largely dependent on water resources, whether through irrigation or tourism activities. We believe prosperity can be achieved while maintaining, but striving to enhance, environmental outcomes and preserving cultural and recreational values.

The next challenge for the zone committee is to increase the understanding between rural and urban audiences and dispel some of the myths that nothing has changed and farmers are destroying the land. People need to take some time to learn what is going on and begin to understand and appreciate the progress that is being made. The recommendations in the ZIP include setting flow and allocation regimes for the rivers and their tributaries.

Nutrient load limits also need to be set for North Canterbury’s rivers and tributaries and landowners need to improve nutrient management practices to make new irrigation developments feasible.

More recently, we have focused on implementing the ZIP and addressing issues such as integrating the three proposals from three different developers for irrigation and hydro generation development in the Hurunui and Waiau catchments and encouraging implementation of practices and systems to improve water quality and land-use practices on-farm and by irrigation companies.

It is the implementation and evolution of our ZIP that will provide the framework for ensuring our water resource can provide social and economic benefits for generations to come, as set out in the Canterbury Water Management Strategy.

David Eder is the Chair of the Hurunui-Waiau Zone Committee. Ian Whitehouse is the Environment Canterbury facilitator for the committee.

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Thinking about water in Auckland Waiology Apr 02

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By Roger Bannister

WaterGovernanceWaiology2013When most people think of Auckland they think of the metropolitan areas, a city containing a third of New Zealand’s population. In fact the Auckland region is a predominantly rural landscape, with rural land uses accounting for 90% of the land area. The contrast of concentrated population and rural activities – horticulture, pastoral farming plantation forestry and native forests – makes the management of water resources a challenge, even more so when considering that most of our water bodies drain into one of three major harbours.

The introduction of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPSFM) and a number of other Council-led initiatives, including a Water Strategic Action Plan and Marine Spatial Planning, creates the opportunity to better manage our fresh and coastal waters by catering to the specific needs of catchments and communities in an integrated way.

The harbours and coastlines in the Auckland are of great importance to our community, so it seems sensible to us, to take the concepts and principles of the NPSFM and extend them to the near shore coastal environment. Through the NPSFM, Councils are required to consider values and set limits that maintain or enhance the freshwater resources. Auckland Council also is undertaking a large project on Marine Spatial Planning that includes identifying values in coastal and marine areas. This programme also will apply a collaborative engagement process to determine agreed outcomes. With the two projects working closely together and in parallel it will ensure that each has consideration for the other. Joint planning will allow freshwater limits to be set that are sensitive to the marine environment and vice-versa. As the two are inextricably linked a collective management approach needs to be taken. We are in the planning stages of how we can hear the values of our communities for coastal and freshwater simultaneously.

Implementation of the NPSFM programme still presents some significant challenges in the way we approach integrated management. Both the Land and Water Forum reports and the proposed Freshwater Reform 2013 have opened the way for collaborative processes. Not least amongst these challenges is the role of the 19 Mana Whenua groups in Auckland and a council of a governing body in co-governance with 21 Local Boards.

Auckland has freshwater issues, as with most areas in New Zealand, but the intense pressures on demand and water quality are not in the public arena here as elsewhere. Around the world collaborative processes have had the most success where demand and quality pressures exist and communities have a high level of interest in the resource. With the tools provided by the NPSFM and what is proposed in the Freshwater Reforms we have a real opportunity to benefit from a higher level of engagement or a collaborative process. To thoroughly capitalise on these opportunities we need to consider how best to encourage the buy-in and to foster a willingness to participate in these processes from our communities.

Roger Bannister is the Team Leader Water Management in Environmental Strategy and Policy unit at Auckland Council.

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The evolution of freshwater management under the RMA Waiology Mar 28

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By Nicola de Wit

WaterGovernanceWaiology2013The enactment of the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) combined around 70 pieces of legislation into one central environmental planning statute. The integration of a number of fragmented regimes was a significant step forward for environmental management in New Zealand. The RMA was also significant for its incorporation of the principle of sustainability; the purpose of the RMA is to promote the ‘sustainable management’ of natural and physical resources.

Ahuriri River, Otago. (Credit: R. Peart, EDS)

Ahuriri River, Otago. (Credit: R. Peart, EDS)

The RMA is consistently described as world-leading legislation – so why has freshwater quality been declining so rapidly in our lowland streams and rivers?

The Act contains two key protections for water. First, it allows people to take and use water for their reasonable domestic needs and to provide drinking water for animals, but it prevents people from using water for any other purpose, unless permitted by a regional plan or a resource consent. Secondly, it prevents any person from discharging a contaminant into water, or onto land where it is likely to enter water, unless allowed by a regional plan or resource consent.

The RMA sets a good starting point. But the devil is in the detail – the regional plans and resource consents which implement it.

One failure of the RMA is that resource consents are allocated on a first-in-first-served basis. This worked when there was plenty of water for everyone. However in catchments that are over-allocated, or nearing over-allocation, it just does not fit the bill.

Another problem is the inadequacy of regional plans. Most regional plans lack specific guidelines and have left the hard decisions to be made through the resource consenting process (or avoided the hard decisions altogether). Managing freshwater effectively requires a catchment-wide approach. This cannot occur when decisions are made consent-by-consent.

Without clear regulation it is difficult to manage freshwater, particularly cumulative effects. However, the adversarial nature of the RMA processes coupled with farmer dominance of many regional councils worked against any council which tried to introduce clear guidelines. Inevitably, woolly language resulted from compromise.

In 2009 the Land and Water Forum (LAWF) began a collaborative process, whereby stakeholders began to work together to find a better way to manage water in New Zealand. The LAWF produced three reports which made a wide range of recommendations. Essentially, it recommended the establishment of defined national objectives for our water bodies, and the setting of limits, standards and targets to ensure these objectives are met. They also advocated the use of collaborative decision-making processes.

The value of the collaborative process is that it recognises that if communities and key players have the scientific, economic, technical and indigenous information and are involved in the resolution of values and interests, it is more likely they will buy-in to the solutions. It is hoped that this will have significant advantages over the adversarial processes which currently dominate the RMA.

Another problem facing water management under the RMA has been a lack of national policy documents. The development of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2011 was a step forward for freshwater management in New Zealand. It aims to safeguard the life-supporting capacity of freshwater, ensure the overall quality of freshwater is maintained or improved and avoid or phase-out the over-allocation of freshwater. It requires regional plans to include freshwater objectives and set water quality limits and environmental flows in order to meet those aims.

The Government recently released a discussion document “Freshwater reform 2013 and beyond” which will implement some of the LAWF recommendations. It addresses the establishment of a National Objectives Framework and the establishment of an optional collaborative planning process for freshwater planning. The National Objectives Framework will include a set of values that a water body can be managed for, with associated minimum states. It will require all water bodies to meet the minimum state for ecosystem health and secondary contact.

The National Objectives Framework will be a step forward for freshwater management in New Zealand. The Government has not yet populated the Framework with tight narrative and numerical values so a crucial part of the new freshwater management architecture is still awaited. This is where science will play a key role.

The Government has also released a further discussion document “Improving our resource management system”. This includes proposals to fundamentally change the principles of the RMA, reducing the Act’s core environmental protections. It is unfortunate that these proposals were announced alongside “Freshwater reform 2013 and beyond”. Improvements to freshwater management will be bittersweet if they come along with a weakening of the RMA’s core environmental protections.

Nicola de Wit is a lawyer at the Environmental Defence Society.

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Evolution of water governance models in New Zealand Waiology Mar 27

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By Bryan Jenkins

WaterGovernanceWaiology2013In her work that won her the 2009 Nobel Prize in economics, Elinor Ostrom identified three types of governance models for common pool resources like water. One is the “Leviathan model” where there is direct government provision of services with integration of policy making and operational functions. The second is the “privatisation model” where there is private sector provision of services with government role as regulator. The third is the self-governing community model where there is community determination of resource management requirements.

We have seen the evolution of these different models in western countries. After WW2, the welfare state was the dominant approach of government. In relation to water management in NZ, the Ministry of Works had the prime responsibility for water management – a classic example of a Leviathan governance model. In the 1980s there was a shift to the neoliberal concept of the private sector being responsible for service provision and that the government’s role was that of regulator.

The Resource Management Act reflects this privatisation model. The RMA was designed on the premise that private interests know best what they want. Thus the responsibility for defining proposals was left to applicants. The RMA was also designed on the basis of “effects management”: applicants’ choices would be constrained by bottom lines set by government with legal oversight (i.e. the Environment Court). Consents for water use are issued as a form of private property right.

However, when sustainability limits are reached for common pool resources like water, it is not sufficient to rely on individual proposals for water use. This is because individual and collective preferences diverge – the basis for a “tragedy of the commons”. But Ostrom’s work indicates that the self-governing community model can achieve sustainable management of common pool resources. This led the Canterbury Regional Council to adopt collaborative governance approaches to the development of the Canterbury Water Management Strategy (CWMS) and to the formulation of programmes to implement the strategy.

There is not one institutional design for a self managed community approach. Rather there is a set of principles that need to be met. In Canterbury there have been different institutional designs for the development of the CWMS compared to formulating implementation programmes. The CWMS was built around a public and stakeholder engagement process overseen by a multi-stakeholder Steering Group of water interests and reporting to the Canterbury Mayoral Forum. It identified that “business as usual” was not sustainable and that it was only possible to achieve sustainable development by considering existing uses of water as well as new uses and projects. There was no capacity for further water development unless the cumulative effects of existing use were reduced.

This led to the formulation of implementation programmes for 10 zones within Canterbury for catchment based issues (Zone Implementation Programmes – ZIPs) and a Regional Implementation Programme (RIP) for regional issues. Zone Committees were established with community, runanga and local authority members. The Regional Committee has a representative of each zone, community members, runanga and Ngai Tahu representatives, and local authority representatives and an independent chair. The RIP and ZIPs are work-in-progress but there are encouraging signs of more sustainable forms of storage (e.g. the selection of the Waitohi storage as an alternative to the controversial dam on the Hurunui South Branch and control gates on Lake Sumner) and the setting of catchment nutrient limits that are in some cases below current levels of nutrient generation.

The outcome of the CWMS was given statutory backing through the recent Canterbury Regional Policy Statement while the process of giving statutory backing to the RIP and ZIPs through the Land and Water Plan is well advanced.

Collaborative governance has created a new water management paradigm in Canterbury. Collaborative approaches have been endorsed by the Land and Water Forum and in the recent government freshwater reform proposals.

However this governance approach is still in its formative phase and the real test will come with on-the-ground implementation. This is likely to require a different institutional design to strategy development and implementation programme formulation. New Zealand models of collaborative governance need to incorporate treaty partnership approaches with community decision making approaches. There is also the issue of the governance of the regional council. In Canterbury, the collaborative concepts were developed under an elected council and are being implemented by the temporary commissioners but the long term governance arrangements are unclear.

Ostrom E (1990) Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Dr Bryan Jenkins is Professor of Strategic Water Management in the Waterways Centre for Freshwater Management, a joint centre between Canterbury and Lincoln Universities.

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Trust, as much as science, is at the heart of water management Waiology Mar 25

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By Chris Arbuckle

WaterGovernanceWaiology2013For many years now “Water User Groups” (WUG’s) have done a great job implementing community-based water management initiatives. And they have achieved this with the assistance of organizations such as the Landcare Trust, Crown Research Institutes, non-government agencies and regional councils. Projects on the Waituna Lagoon, Upper Taieri River and Aorere Catchment attest to this. They were formed because a community of people desired practical action to address concerns about environmental change. Usually a champion has encouraged a group of interested people to form around an issue to seek a solution. In the main this is all done voluntarily, for the well-being of the water resource and community, and by someone with great charisma to drive it through.

Upper Taieri River, Central Otago (Credit: C. Arbuckle).

Upper Taieri River, Central Otago (Credit: C. Arbuckle).

Of the three main recommendations in the Government’s “Freshwater Reform 2013 and beyond” (national objectives framework; collaborative community planning (CCP); managing within quality and quantity limits using best industry practices); the collaborative planning bit clearly represents the biggest challenge. Without this working the other two recommendations lose their effectiveness.

I agree with the fact that to make decisions about resources you need to gather “sound information, preferably undisputed, and based on sound interpretation of the underlying science”. However, we need to remind ourselves that the environment doesn’t actually wait for humans to decide what is “sound”, and policy recognises that we can’t wait for all the science to be understood. In a resource-limited New Zealand, in the end the CCP group will need to trust each other enough to make the hard decision with whatever science is at hand, or water managers will gain little from this process. Any decision will no doubt affect people’s livelihoods and their values, and is likely to be your neighbours, triggering a suite of unintended consequences, environmentally, socially, culturally and economically that keep the CCP group awake at night.

Up until now, and as ugly as it is, the hard decisions are by default made via the Resource Management Act (RMA), one important benefit being that the law keeps the decision independent of community and impersonal as possible. This “new” CCP approach needs people who can explain the science and build an enduring relationship of trust with people, to become personal (as you can’t hide behind your lawyer in collaborative processes). As a scientist, you never have all the answers to make a completely “undisputable” decision (policy), so we need researchers to walk with community for the long haul, not just dump numbers and run, as Ned and Helen highlight. They need to be able to bridge the gaps for disputed science. In my view, this is where we will struggle. We simply don’t as yet have enough people on the ground to help a community digest a massive amount of information, nor do we have the time to trust the science completely so then the CCP group can rest easy on their hard decision.

For water user groups (or collaborative planning groups) to be effective and truly influence decision making, Government needs to quickly look to even more innovative ways to provide support and, just as importantly, invest in people to deliver the information. I know this is being considered, but for this CCP challenge to prosper there needs to be more haste put into supporting the process and that means more money.

So to underpin this collaborative process, we need to:

  • Build capability while setting up the core water management objectives for CCP groups;
  • Provide a support governance structure to assist a CCP to highlight the hard issues and underpin critical decision making;
  • Provide lots of administrative support;
  • Provide support to ensure catchment based initiatives are effective, implemented and perceived conflicts minimised;
  • Provide groups with succession strategies, as environmental initiatives take a long time;
  • Assist with establishing appropriate monitoring programmes so the successes of a water user group can be assessed through time, as well as the policy;
  • Use social media and open learning initiatives to up-skill our community decision makers.

So if some of these community planning approaches go off track, allow these groups to retain their dignity by ensuring they are given the best shot possible and have time to learn from the experience. This stuff is hard and complex and unlike those embroiled in the RMA process, a community of people in a catchment will still need to return home and trust each other at the end of the day.

Chris Arbuckle is an independent environmental consultant at Aspiring Environmental Ltd.

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Managing our freshwater resources in a changing climate Waiology Mar 22

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By Daniel Collins

WaterGovernanceWaiology2013While water management is challenging enough as it is, climate change makes it harder. No longer can we rely solely on experiences from the past to guide our actions, but we must also consider forecasts of the future. And with New Zealand’s water resources expected to change in the coming decades – well within resource management planning horizons – it would be prudent to start to adapt sooner than later. So how does climate change affect the ways water may be governed, and how are current governance systems placed to deal with climate change?

First up, let’s review the potential effects. As the climate changes, temperatures are expected to rise and rainfall patterns shift both regionally and seasonally. This would result in more flow in some rivers and in some months, and less in others. Similar effects can be expected for our groundwaters too. In much of the country, droughts are expected to become more severe (PDF). Paradoxically, so too are floods, in part as warmer air is capable of holding more water, leading to more intense storms. Water quality is expected to decline in some lakes, and erosion may increase, though there has been much less study on this. As for the implications of climate change for our aquatic ecosystems, the jury is basically out at this time due to limited research. And in general, gradual changes in freshwaters will be combined with increasing uncertainty about the future as we move further away from past conditions.

These potential impacts would have implications for the amount of water that can be abstracted, the amount of nutrients that can be discharged, the productivity of both agriculture and hydroelectricity, flood and drought risk, and the natural character of the landscape. This would affect the social, cultural, economic and environmental values of New Zealand’s freshwaters making the balancing act all the more difficult.

But the need to take heed of climate change when managing resources is being recognised, with climate change becoming part of major national governance documents. The Resource Management Act, amended in 2004, directs councils to “have particular regard to [sic] the effects of climate change“. The National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2011 (NPSFM) requires councils to have regard to “the reasonably foreseeable impacts of climate change“. Consequently, more specific references to climate change have been appearing in regional documents too, referring to both flooding hazards and water shortages (e.g., Taranaki Regional Policy Statement, section 7.2). And as councils respond to the relatively recent NPSFM, we can expect to see more consideration of climate change in future policies and plans.

Along similar lines, the non-governmental Land and Water Forum acknowledged the significance of “changing weather patterns” in its first report, which could be interpreted as climate change or as climate variability (e.g., ENSO, IPO). In its third report, the LWF recommended that water quality management take climate change into account (where the science vastly lags the policy aspirations), while water allocation (where the science of climate change impacts is clearest) only considered climate variability.

More recently, while the Government’s freshwater management proposals, Freshwater reform 2013 and beyond, do not mention climate change explicitly, they do acknowledge that…

“…future freshwater supplies may not be reliable, especially in the context of climate uncertainties.” (p.16)

So how can the Government, Regional Councils and other governing bodies (e.g., water user groups) take into account the “foreseeable impacts of climate change”? In various ways:

  • be prepared for less water and more droughts, more sensitive ecosystems, and an increase in extreme floods (see the MfE guidance on flooding), depending on the location. But also be prepared to take advantage of any opportunities (e.g., more river flow in winter);
  • accept and accommodate greater uncertainty in environmental limits and economic productivity;
  • adapt allocation limits, minimum flows and nutrient loads as the changing freshwater system dictates (preemptively or retrospectively);
  • foster resilience and robustness among water users and management regimes.

Putting these strategies into practice is going to take time, and regional councils and other governing bodies and advisory groups are taking the first steps on this journey. Progress will depend upon the science providing the necessary answers, and existing science being better translated into policy solutions. In either case, the science plays a fundamental role in assessing impacts and alternative interventions, and thus informing the governance process.

Collins, D.B.G.; Woods, R.A.; Rouse, H.; Duncan, M.; Snelder, T.; Cowie, B. (2012). Chapter 8. Water Resources. Water resource impacts and adaptation under climate change. In: Impacts of Climate Change on Land-based Sectors and Adaptation Options. Clark, A.J.; Nottage, R.A.C. (eds). Technical Report to the Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change Adaptation Technical Working Group, Ministry for Primary Industries, Wellington, pp 347 – 386.
Dr Daniel Collins is a hydrologist and water resources scientist at NIWA.

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