Fresh water is important to the people of Taranaki, and is vital for community water supplies, major industrial users and agriculture.
Maintaining and enhancing the mauri (life force) and wairua (spirit) of water is of fundamental importance to tangata whenua.
Water is also highly valued for its association with a wide range of amenity and recreational uses such as swimming, angling, enjoying picnics, walking and tramping.
The region contains hundreds of rivers and streams, and the quality of their water is strongly influenced by their use and by the adjacent land.
Pastoral and urban development over the past 150 years has resulted in dramatic changes to the character of Taranaki’s rivers and their catchments. The predominant agricultural pressure on our freshwater resources comes from the dairying sector, which covers the majority of the ring plain. Dairy herds are increasing in size, with the number of cows in Taranaki steadily increasing from 350,000 in the late 1970s to what appears to be a plateau of about 480,000. Pressures on freshwater quality and quantity also come from industrial uses.
Download this section of the full report 282kb
Freshwater Quality
Management of water quality has been a significant issue for the Taranaki Regional Council and its predecessors for the past 40 years.
Monitoring has shown:
- Over the past 12 years, the ecological health of streams (measured by studying the communities of invertebrates living in them) has demonstrably improved at a number of sites, including a number in the middle and lower reaches of catchments, and has not demonstrably deteriorated at any sites.
- Measures of ecological health are good to excellent in the upper catchments where there is more streambank vegetation cover but only fair further down the catchments where land use is more intense.
- The region’s fresh water usually meets the bacterial guidelines for swimming, although at certain times of the summer (immediately after a flood event) or in certain catchments (such as the small, intensively farmed catchments) water quality may not meet national guidelines.
- The region’s water quality comfortably meets guidelines for dissolved oxygen and clarity.
- Measures of levels of organic pollution (BOD), bacteriological pollution (faecal coliforms and enterococci) and toxicity (ammonia) are now stable regionally, after past improvements.
- Taranaki rivers are naturally high in phosphorus and so do not meet national guidelines, furthermore levels of phosphorus are generally increasing further.
- Nitrogen levels meet guidelines in the upper reaches of catchments, but not further down, where impacts of agriculture are more intense.
Council officers regularly monitor for compliance with the Regional Fresh Water Plan and resource consents, undertaking enforcement action where necessary.
Management highlights over the past five years:
- A decline in the number of point source discharges to surface water from 1,612 in 2003 to 1,413 in 2008.
- Significant investments made by agriculture, industry and the community in waste water treatment and disposal systems.
- 100% of dairy farms have effluent treatment and disposal systems that are monitored and inspected each year.
- The rate of compliance with consent conditions is high, with an average of 96% of farm dairy discharges complying with consent conditions, and overall, 93% of consent holders showing high or good levels of performance.
- A significant growth in the Council’s riparian management programme – 2,009 riparian plans have now been prepared (treble the 385 plans that had been prepared by 2003), covering a total of 10,818 km of stream bank.
- 1.3 million riparian plants have been provided at low cost to riparian plan holders since 1997.
- landowners have fenced 504 km and planted 426 km of stream bank through implementing riparian plans, which, added to existing fencing and planting, means that 60% of stream bank, on the ring plain under a riparian plan, is fenced, and 43% is vegetated. The Council will continue to promote fencing and planting of ring plain streams to meet the target of 90% of riparian plans implemented by 2015.
Download this section of the full report 2.6mb
Freshwater Quantity
The region is well-endowed with fresh water, having no less than 530 named rivers or streams. For most of the time, there are no significant water use pressures in Taranaki.
Since 2003 the region has experienced some of the biggest floods and lowest flows on record, with floods for the Waitotara region in 2004 and the May 2007 flash flood event between Oakura around to Egmont Village. Conversely, the region experienced a drought over the summer of 2007-08, recording extremely low rainfall totals, and low stream flows.
The main features of water quantity are that:
- There are 150 resource consents to take and use surface water, and 52 consents to direct and use surface water.
- Total surface water use is over 474,371 cubic metres (the equivalent of 194 Olympic-sized swimming pools) per day.
- The single largest use category is for municipal and rural water supply schemes, with a total allocation of 152,333 cubic metres per day (1,763 litres per second) or 32% of all allocated water use.
- Overall there has been a 7% increase in surface water used since 2003.
- More than 30% of the average low flow is allocated for use in 8% of catchments, but flows at which abstraction must cease are set to safeguard ecological values.
- Interest in irrigation has increased in recent years, especially in the coastal and southern areas of the region.
The Regional Fresh Water Plan contains provisions to manage water use to protect aquatic life and other values. Measures are required to be put in place to mitigate or reduce the environmental effects of water use and these are closely monitored by the Council.
Download this section of the full report 934kb
Groundwater
The region’s groundwater is increasingly becoming an important source for domestic, industrial, agricultural and domestic water supply, particularly in South Taranaki. Groundwater systems are complex, being influenced by the nature of geological systems.
In summary:
- There are 81 resource consents for groundwater use in Taranaki.
- A total of 1,550 wells are recorded on the Council’s database. Most of them are used for farm and domestic water supplies, although it is estimated that a large number of bores are not recorded on the Council’s database.
- 44,022 cubic metres (the equivalent of 17 Olympic-sized swimming pools) of ground- water a day are currently allocated, twice the amount reported in 2003, but still not a significant pressure on groundwater levels.
- The deeper aquifers mostly show less variation in groundwater levels than do the shallower aquifers.
- Groundwater quality in Taranaki is generally high, with no problems associated with pesticide residues, microbial contamination or saltwater intrusion, and mineral levels reflect the geology of the aquifers.
- 94% of the 68 groundwater wells monitored had nitrate levels that met national drinking water standards, although nitrate levels have been found above the guidelines in a few wells tapping into shallow aquifers in South Taranaki.
- Shallow groundwater quality, in terms of nitrate levels, is generally improving.
Download this section of the full report 384kb
Biodiversity
Taranaki rivers and streams support a diverse range of native fish and invertebrates. In summary:
- Regionally significant wetlands have, on the whole, been adequately protected through formal mechanisms and proactive protection works such as fencing and planting.
- 63 small wetlands have been drained or reclaimed since a study undertaken in 1995.
- Over the past five years, consents have been granted for 25.5 km of small stream to be piped underground, and the realignment of almost 7 km of stream for the purpose of land improvement with consequential losses of native fish habitat.
- Of 108 structures that have the potential to impede fish passage, 49 provide adequate fish passage, two have been removed and the others need remedial work.
- Since 2001, fish passage has been improved over 12 structures.
- Four out of five sites monitored for the threatened brown mudfish show healthy breeding populations.
The Council works with landowners to protect regionally significant wetlands.
Download this section of the full report 716kb
Public Access
Public access to rivers and lakes in Taranaki is often provided by way of public roads, or directly through parks and reserves.
However, access to many rivers and stream sites requires the permission of the adjoining landowner. Respondents to several surveys have indicated that public access to freshwater sites is ‘about right’.
No major constraints on public access to rivers and streams exist in Taranaki. District plans prepared by the New Plymouth, Stratford and South Taranaki district councils provide for the creation of esplanade reserves and esplanade strips alongside rivers and streams.
Download this section of the full report 178kb
