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A Monitoring and Reporting Strategy for the Dairying and Clean Streams Accord

1 Summary

2 Introduction

3 This Project

4 Measuring Progress Towards Meeting the Components of the Accord

5 Measuring the Environmental Outcomes of Implementing the Accord

6 Establishing the Tier 2 Catchments

7 Reporting

8 A Proposed Monitoring and Reporting Strategy

9 Suggestions for Future Best Practice

10 Recommendations

11 Acknowledgements

12 References

Appendix 1: The Project Brief

Appendix 2: Summary of Responses from Regional Authorities

Appendix 3: The Best Practice Dairy Catchments

Appendix 4: Base Information from a Proposed Tier 2 Catchment

6 Establishing the Tier 2 Catchments

6.1 Establishing the base condition

6.1.1 Information about farming practice

The first step in establishing any new monitoring catchment will be to collect some basic information on the nature of the dairying in the catchment. This would need to include:

• the number of dairy farms present, herd sizes and stocking rates (and ideally some information about the recent history of dairying in the catchment)
• some information about other land uses in the catchment that may affect water quality
• the percentage of stock wintered off each property
• how dairy effluent is disposed from each property, and how well the conditions of consent are presently complied with
• whether there are any particular issues or problems to resolve, for example, the presence of mole and tile drains.

6.1.2 Information about progress towards Accord targets

Robust information needs to be collected about progress towards Accord targets including:

• agreement about which watercourses are Accord streams
• to what extent stock are excluded from those streams - what proportion is fenced out, how good is that fencing and is it accompanied by riparian zone retirement
• how many regular stream crossings are present, and of those, which ones are bridged or culverted
• how many of the farmers are carrying out nutrient budgeting, and are any undertaking active nutrient management
• are there other activities carried out by farmers that will have potential benefits for stream water quality and stream health. An example would be the use of low-pressure irrigation systems.

6.1.3 Environmental information

Regional authorities will be able to collate existing environmental information about the catchment:

• is there any flow recording site in the catchment, or if not, is flow information available from a nearby similar catchment from which some correlation could be made?
• what water quality data are available? For how long and from which sites? Has that data been analysed for any purpose?
• has a riparian habitat condition survey been carried out?
• have any analyses of stream sediment been carried out?
• has any biological information been collected, such as on-stream algal biomass, stream macroinvertebrates or fish communities (from the NIWA freshwater fish database)? [It may also be possible to use the REC classification to determine the biota that might be expected to live in the watercourse being studied in natural conditions.]

Some councils have already collated this type of information. An example of the type of information available is presented in Appendix 4 of this report.

6.2 The monitoring programme

The next step is to establish the monitoring programme in the study catchment. This again involves three elements:

• ongoing monitoring of dairy practice in the catchment
• ongoing monitoring of progress towards Accord targets
• water quality and biological monitoring of streams (and possible flow recording).

The latter element is the major component of this programme. Each catchment will need at least two sites established, one upstream of the influence of dairying and the other downstream of at least some dairy properties. In reality, each catchment will likely need three to four sampling sites established.

Intensive monitoring will be necessary to establish the base condition of the catchment, and will need to be repeated once every three or four years. In between times, more extensive monitoring can be carried out to monitor trends.

Water quality at each site should be monitored for the following parameters: suspended solids, turbidity, volatile suspended solids, conductivity, total phosphate, dissolved reactive phosphate, total nitrogen, nitrate + nitrite nitrogen, ammonia nitrogen, dissolved oxygen and E. coli.

• Subject to the physical logistics of carrying out the monitoring, the frequency of water quality sampling should be increased during summer (January to March inclusive) as this is the time that the greatest benefits from the Accord actions are likely to occur.
• Biological monitoring of macroinvertebrates and algal biomass should be undertaken in January or February.
• Ideally, flow-monitoring information should be available at the monitoring site located at the downstream end of the monitoring reach. This will enable water quality to be correlated with stream flows.

Table 4: Suggested in-stream monitoring regime

6.3 Other monitoring

A number of other studies being undertaken around the country can also be incorporated into this monitoring and reporting strategy to further assess the impacts of dairying on the environment. These include:

• Monitoring of shallow groundwater up gradient and down gradient of two intensive dairy farms in Hawke's Bay. One farm is located over the Ruataniwha unconfined aquifer and the other is located on a perched aquifer adjacent to the upper reaches of the Ngaruroro River. On this later farm, AgResearch have undertaken a two year investigation (at the landowner's cost) using ceramic cup sampling of drainage water to try and differentiate the impacts of dairy-cow grazing (dung and urine patches) from effluent irrigation to land.
• The Lake Rerewhakaaitu Catchment in Bay of Plenty is being studied using money from the Sustainable Farming Fund (SFF) administered by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. The work is being undertaken because the community is concerned about the impact of farm management practices on water quality in the lake. The work is being undertaken by AgResearch and NIWA in conjunction with Environment Bay of Plenty (EBoP).

The catchment is predominantly in dairy pasture, with about 30 farms present. This is unique among the Rotorua lakes. There is concern that the movement of dairy farm effluent through soil water to the lake will result in enrichment. EBoP have already found increasing nutrient level in inflows to the lake. Currently the lake meets the Trophic Level Index set by EBoP in their Regional Water and Land Plan. However, with the trend in dairy farming for intensification, to maintain the health of the lake practical methods are needed for farmers to minimise impacts on the lake, while allowing them to operate sustainable farm businesses. It is anticipated that the results from this study will be able to be transferred to other lake catchments.