2 The Current Freshwater Management System: Meeting Demands?
Since the time of New Zealand's earliest human settlement, freshwater has been intrinsically connected to our health, wellbeing, livelihood and culture.
Freshwater: many values, many uses
Since the time of New Zealand's earliest human settlement, freshwater has been intrinsically connected to our health, wellbeing, livelihood and culture. The country's lakes and rivers have nurtured plants and animals; sustained all kinds of human activity; influenced patterns of settlement; supported economic growth; and helped shape our national identity.
New Zealanders value freshwater in many ways. We enjoy the qualities that lakes and rivers bring to our unique environment. We appreciate their place in our history and culture.
Water has many uses critical to our economic and social wellbeing. These include:
- agriculture and horticulture
- hydro-electricity
- industrial use
- domestic use
- ecology
- recreation
- tourism
- conservation
- cultural and historic heritage
- tribal identity.
For Māori, water is also a taonga with life-giving properties that must be protected for future generations, and a spiritual connection between the past, present and future.
In addition to their traditional interests in water, Māori - as landowners, farmers, business people, tourism operators and recreational users - have wide-ranging commercial interests in water management.
Māori values are consistent with the principles of sustainability. For example, it is very important to Māori that natural resources are safeguarded and managed to protect options for future generations.
Roles and relationships
The right to use water in New Zealand is vested in the Crown, which delegates management responsibility to regional councils through the RMA. City and district councils are also involved in water management, particularly drinking water, stormwater and sewage.
Role of regional councils
Under the RMA, regional councils are responsible for making decisions on the allocation and use of water within their boundaries. Councils have responsibilities to include Maori and the community in planning and decision-making.
Councils also determine social, economic, environmental and cultural outcomes relating to water quality for their communities - including through the long term council community plans that councils are required to develop under the Local Government Act 2002. Plans prepared by city and district councils must not be inconsistent with regional plans.
Role of central government
Central government can become involved with water management by using tools provided for in the RMA. These include national policy statements, national environmental standards (which may set water quality standards), water conservation orders, and government submissions on councils' plans. The Ministry for the Environment is responsible for administering the RMA, and other government departments are also involved in water management.
Tools for water management
Regional policy statements and plans
To guide their water allocation decisions, councils develop regional policy statements and regional plans. These may specify key environmental guidelines, and state how water will be allocated to users. Some plans also specify minimum flows and the amount of water that can be taken from certain water bodies.
Councils may also use their regional plans to set quality standards for water bodies, and to manage water quality and land use activities that may affect water quality. The RMA requires that councils expressly approve discharges of contaminants, [The Resource Management Act's definition of 'contaminant' covers any substance (including a gas, odorous compounds, liquid, solid or micro-organism), energy or heat that when discharged into water, or onto land, or into air, changes the physical, chemical, or biological condition of that water, land or air.] (such as animal excrement and fertiliser) into water or onto land where they can enter waterways. They must also expressly authorise discharges of sediment that may get into water bodies. Councils do this through rules in their regional plans, or by attaching conditions to resource consents.
Resource consents
Unless authorised by rules in a regional plan, anyone wishing to take or use freshwater must apply for a resource consent. Discharges to land that can reach water, or direct discharges into water, also require a resource consent unless authorised in a regional plan or in regulations. Many councils are still developing approaches to manage diffuse discharges [A diffuse discharge is any general discharge or seepage, either over or under ground, of water borne material, which is not from any readily identifiable point (also known as non-point source discharge).] on to land. For example, diffuse discharges may be managed under discharge permits or land use consents.
Resource consent applications are assessed against the relevant council's regional plans and policy statements. In considering applications, councils are chiefly concerned that proposed uses do not adversely affect the environment or other water permit holders.
A water permit is a resource consent that gives applicants the right to take, use, dam and/or, divert water subject to availability. Permits are issued on a 'first come, first served' basis to applicants who can demonstrate they have a reasonable need for water, and can meet the environmental sustainability requirements of the RMA. Councils are not able to compare competing applications against each other.
Permits do not guarantee that water is available, nor do they give ownership over the water resource (unless it is within a pipe, tank or cistern). Permits can last anywhere between one and 35 years. Although there are no guarantees that a permit will be renewed when it expires, to date this has usually been the practice.
Water permits apply to the particular consent holder at the site specified. They can be transferred to new owners or occupiers of the site on application to the regional council. They can also be transferred to other sites within the same catchment where the regional plan allows for it, or when a regional council grants a specific application to transfer.
In practice, few permit transfers to other sites occur, and few plans provide for this. However, as some water bodies become fully allocated, there is a growing demand to transfer consents.
If a particular water body is already fully allocated (or over-allocated), councils deal with applications for further allocations in different ways. Some councils have waiting lists for users seeking allocations. Some use rationing schemes during droughts to free up water for higher priority uses.
Water conservation orders
Under the RMA, water conservation orders are made by the Governor-General, on the recommendation of the Minister for the Environment, to permanently protect the outstanding 'amenity or intrinsic values' of individual water bodies. They allow for other compatible water uses, but give priority to environmental considerations. Water conservation orders cannot affect existing resource consents.
Anyone may apply for a water conservation order, which is considered through a hearing and appeal process before a special tribunal (and, if necessary, an appeal to the Environment Court). The process can take many years due to the need to reconcile conflicting interests. Water conservation orders take precedence over regional plans.
Community consultation and partnership
Councils are required to undertake community consultation when preparing their regional policy statements, regional plans and long term council community plans.
The need for consultation with Māori on water management issues is specifically addressed in the RMA, which describes 'the relationship of Māori and their culture and traditions with their ancestral lands, water, sites, waahi tapu, and other taonga' as a matter of national importance.
Occasionally, specific water issues are tackled through partnerships between central and/or regional government and other parties, including Māori. For example, a number of national, local and community organisations - including the Tuwharetoa Māori Trust Board, Taupo District Council, local landowners, central government and Environment Waikato - are working together to ensure the long term protection of Lake Taupo's water quality and its regenerative capacity.
Research and information
Information about water quality and allocation is collected by both regional councils and central government. Both fund research into water issues.
Gathering information to support water allocation and management decisions is difficult. Because freshwater ecosystems are dynamic, scientific knowledge about water bodies and potential uses is constantly developing. Some councils take an adaptive approach, developing 'interim' plans and modifying them as more information becomes available. Others delay preparing plans until more certain information is available.
Education and awareness
Both local government and central government undertake education and community awareness activities, especially relating to efficient water use and water quality issues. Best practice guidelines may be developed for particular water users, such as farmers or industry. Voluntary agreements - such as the Dairying and Clean Streams Accord - may be initiated as a way of changing behaviour and achieving better water quality outcomes.
Limitations of the present system
Demand for water for important economic and social activities is increasing.
Significant growth in agricultural productivity is being supported by irrigation. The area of irrigated land has roughly doubled every 10 years since the 1960s, and irrigation now accounts for nearly 80 percent of all water allocated in New Zealand. The feasibility of a number of irrigation schemes is currently being investigated, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry estimates it is technically and economically feasible to irrigate a further 200,000 hectares nationwide. [This would add about $330 million to the Gross Domestic Product, at the farmgate.]
There is also demand for water in energy generation, as the dwindling availability of gas raises renewed interest in hydro-electricity generation to help meet energy needs and renewable energy targets.
Greater demands like these are placing many pressures on New Zealand's freshwater resources:
- growing competition for water
- changing land uses (including subdivision), more intensive agriculture and the difficulties of managing diffuse discharges are adversely affecting water quality
- conflicts between the values associated with particular water bodies, and between the ways people want to use them
- some water bodies are becoming degraded before their values are recognised and secured.
Dealing with pressures of this kind requires a water management framework that is flexible, fair, supportive of efficient water use, and able to make sound choices between competing needs and values. Improving the quality of some water bodies can be costly.
The present management system poses the following challenges:
- not all expectations and needs for freshwater are currently being met, and demands are growing
- water quality is declining in many areas and is unacceptable in some
- given the range of people's interests in water (social economic, environmental and cultural) it is difficult under the present system to establish priorities for action.
