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8 A 'Good' Allocation Process

Processes for the allocation of fresh water need to establish an appropriate balance between the competing values society has for water. The conservation, environmental, cultural and recreational values of freshwater require a certain amount of water to be kept instream. The economic values of water can involve instream (hydroelectricity, recreation, tourism) and out of stream uses (household consumption, livestock consumption, irrigation and industrial use). As parts of New Zealand approach the limits of available water there is likely to be increasing competition between instream uses, instream values and abstractive uses and between productive uses of water.

The increasing competition for fresh water resources in New Zealand means that it becomes more important that we have:

  • adequate processes to enable sound decisions to be made about how much water should remain in water bodies and how much can be abstracted
  • processes that are more likely to lead to the allocation and facilitate the reallocation of abstracted water to the highest environmental, social, cultural and economic values, taking into account present and future needs. These processes should operate in a fair and equitable way, so that a small number of users cannot 'lock up' the bulk of the water to the detriment of the wider community
  • systems that encourage technical efficiency in the use of water.

To be effective these processes need good information on the quantity, quality and location of water and also on the environmental impact of different levels of abstraction or use. The processes also need to effectively elicit information on the environmental, social, cultural and economic values of different uses of water, both instream and abstractive.

Additionally, these processes need to operate in a context of:

  • the interaction between allocation and water quality objectives. The volume of water abstracted impacts on the capacity of a water body to assimilate contaminants, and some abstractive uses may contribute to water pollution
  • the need to provide flexibility to enable adaptive management, given the incomplete understanding of the impact of abstraction/use on environmental instream values and the dynamic and unstable nature of freshwater ecosystems
  • the impact of any abstraction on instream values and on the capacity of other productive uses to abstract water depending on return flows
  • a dynamic environment with incomplete information and associated uncertainties about future opportunities for the use of water. Highest environmental, social, cultural and economic values may well change over time
  • the desirability of providing appropriate certainty and consistency to users so that investment is not unduly impeded.

There are tensions between these aspects that need to be managed.


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