Selwyn-Waihora Zone Committee meeting

The committee will begin the meeting with a briefing from Nick Head from the Department of Conservation on dryland biodiversity before going on to focus on the water quality limit setting processes in the zone with senior Environment Canterbury planners.

Environment Canterbury is required to set water quality and quantity limits under the Government’s National Policy Statement (NPS) for Freshwater Management. To give effect to the NPS Environment Canterbury is developing a Land and Water Plan (expected to be notified in July 2012) to replace the water quality and quantity chapters of the Canterbury Natural Resources Regional Plan.

A process is also underway– based on the 2010/11 limit-setting process in the Hurunui-Waiau zone – for the zone committee to make recommendations on limits. These recommendations will cover minimum river flows, water allocation and nutrient load limits and will go to Environment Canterbury’s Commissioners by the end of the year.

The process involves a wide range of focus groups (drawn from environmental, farming, recreational, community and industry stakeholders) considering a range of scenarios developed by the zone committee.

At the meeting the committee will further discuss a suite of possible future scenarios that will be modelled by scientists, and then analysed by the focus groups as part of the limit-setting process. The scenarios range from development-focused to environmentally focussed and are being modelled to predict the likely outcomes on the economy, the environment, social and cultural indicators, as well as on-farm implications.

The Land and Water Plan will contain interim limits set at the regional level, and also enables limits to be set at the zone level in a series of sub-regional chapters. These sub regional limits will supersede the interim regional ones.

The committee will finish the meeting by receiving an update from Environment Canterbury on progress implementing the Zone Implementation Programme (ZIP) and then it will hear the Selwyn District Council’s response to the ZIP.

In recent months the main focus for the Selwyn-Waihora Zone Committee has been on working with the community to develop a programme of recommendations for water management.

The final ZIP was endorsed by the Selwyn District and Christchurch City councils, as well as Environment Canterbury, in late 2011. It now forms the basis for the design and realignment of council work and planning programmes for freshwater.

The Selwyn-Waihora Zone Committee is a joint committee of the Christchurch City and Selwyn District Councils, and Environment Canterbury.

Zone Committee meetings are open to the public to attend.

Meeting information

Selwyn-Waihora Zone Committee meeting
Tuesday, 1 May at 1pm
Selwyn District Council Offices, Norman Kirk Drive, Rolleston

Read the agenda (2 MB)