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Cultural Health Index

The Cultural Health Index (CHI) is a tool that iwi and hapū can use to assess and manage waterways in their area. The index allows iwi/ hapū to assess the cultural and biological health of a stream or catchment of their choosing, as well as the water quality, and then communicate this information to water managers in a way that can be understood and integrated into resource management processes.

A Cultural Health Index for Streams and Waterways: a tool for nationwide use, 2006, is a technical report describing how the Cultural Health Index works scientifically and how it has been developed through testing on different river types and with different iwi.

Using the Cultural Health Index: How to assess the health of streams and waterways, 2006, explains how to apply the CHI for streams and waterways, from selecting sites and setting up a monitoring team, to calculating the CHI scores for the sites. It provides resources such as forms, recommended interview questions and data collection worksheets.

A Cultural Health Index for Streams and Waterways: Indicators for recognising and expressing Māori values, 2003, was an interim report prepared for the Ministry to identify mauri (the life force) and mahinga kai (food and other resources) stream health indicators.

Further information

  • See the fresh water page for related projects, policies, regulations, reports, partnerships, guidelines and tools about fresh water.
  • For a full list of publications relating to water refer to the water publications page.

Last updated: 6 January 2009