Proposed National Environmental Standard on Ecological Flows and Water Levels Questions and Answers
Scope of the proposed National Environmental Standard (proposed Standard)
- What is the difference between ecological and environmental flows?
- When will other ‘non-ecological’ environmental values be accounted for? Will standards for environmental flows be incorporated into this proposed standard or will they form an additional national environmental standard?
Roles under the proposed standard
- Who is responsible for administration of the proposed standard and who will oversee its implementation?
- Who will be responsible for applying methods to establish ecological flows?
Technical methods
- What if councils have their own methods to develop ecological flows/methods?
- Would new methods be able to be incorporated into the proposed Standard in the future? How would new methods be validated?
- Who would have to pay for implementation costs of the methods, especially in catchments with few water users?
Application
- Would the proposed standard apply to operative and/or proposed plans? At what stage of a regional planning process would the proposed standard apply/not apply?
- What happens when existing consents expire?
- What about consents with long terms which have periodic reviews of conditions? Would the proposed standard, or alternatively the regional plan, require that the limits and methods should be applied to these?
- Does the proposed standard only apply to pristine or high quality resources? Or does it apply equally to water resources with degraded water quality?
Scope of the proposed National Environmental Standard (proposed Standard)
1) What is the difference between ecological and environmental flows?
“Environmental flows” relate to protecting a range of environmental and community values including ecological systems, cultural and tangata whenua values, recreational values and other amenity values.
“Ecological flows” relate only to protecting specific ecological components and/or ecosystem health and/or functioning/processes. They are a subset of “environmental flows” as shown in the following diagram.
Text description of figure
This diagram illustrates the components of a simplified environmental flow or water level. As shown in the diagram, several of the individual components may overlap to a significant degree and it is typically the case that providing for ecological flows will form a significant component of the final environmental flow and water level. However, additional flows or higher water levels may be required to provide adequate for the other values.
2) When will other ‘non-ecological’ environmental values be accounted for? Will standards for environmental flows be incorporated into this proposed standard or will they form an additional national environmental standard?
As there is a better understanding of the ecological flow component, this proposed standard has been developed as a first step. Setting flows for other values such as recreation and amenity values, is an imprecise science and we are currently undertaking further investigation.
The Sustainable Water Programme of Action (“the Water Programme”) is currently looking at the different approaches taken to accounting for non-ecological environmental values – both in NZ (regions which already account for other environmental values) and overseas.
The proposed National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management will also provide some guidance for addressing conflicting needs and values.
Roles under the proposed standard
3) Who is responsible for administration of the proposed standard and who will oversee its implementation?
Administration of the proposed standard is done by the Ministry for the Environment, but much of the implementation will be done by Regional Councils.
4) Who will be responsible for applying methods to establish ecological flows?
Regional councils would be responsible for applying the methods when setting ecological flows/levels in plans. Applicants for consents relating to water bodies without plan provisions, and that exceed interim limits, would be responsible for applying the methods as part of their environmental impact assessments.
Technical methods
5) What if councils have their own methods to develop ecological flows/methods?
The councils would be required to use the methods specified in the standard. Most councils already use these methods in the development of their proposed and existing plans.
6) Would new methods be able to be incorporated into the proposed Standard in the future? How would new methods be validated?
New methods would be able to be incorporated into the proposed standard in the future. The methods under the proposed standard are identified and set out in a separate technical document (the draft document is “Draft guidelines for the selection of methods to determine ecological flows and water levels”). This technical document would be ‘incorporated by reference’ into the proposed standard. This means that the technical document is formally part of the proposed standard, but it can be updated to include new methods or remove outdated methods without requiring a revision of the whole national environmental standard.
Mechanisms would be provided by central government for new methods to be proposed and evaluated.
7) Who would have to pay for implementation costs of the methods, especially in catchments with few water users?
The first responsibility rests with regional councils when setting ecological flows. Where this does not occur, applicants for resource consents that exceed interim limits would be responsible for providing the necessary information – they would usually commission experts to do this work.
Application
8) Would the proposed standard apply to operative and/or proposed plans? At what stage of a regional planning process would the proposed standard apply/not apply?
The proposed standard would only apply where policy and/or provisions for setting limits on freshwater resources are not provided in a proposed or operative regional plan. The proposed standard would no longer apply in a region as soon as a regional plan (with appropriate environmental flows/levels) is notified. From the date when the national environmental standard takes effect, any new regional plan would have to use the methods in the proposed standard to develop ecological flow and/or level regimes.
9) What happens when existing consents expire?
The interim flows would apply to all applications for consents, including existing consents as they expired. The allocation limits in the interim flows include existing consents. The methods specified in the proposed standard would apply to consent applications relating to water bodies without plan provisions and that exceed interim limits.
10) What about consents with long terms which have periodic reviews of conditions? Would the proposed standard, or alternatively the regional plan, require that the limits and methods should be applied to these?
Yes, the methods would have to be applied at the time of the review of conditions, if the reason for a review clause was to apply new knowledge or the results of monitoring information [See RMA s.128(1)(a).].
11) Does the proposed standard only apply to pristine or high quality resources? Or does it apply equally to water resources with degraded water quality?
The proposed standard applies to all types of water resources. It would specifically recognises a link between water quality and quantity, and seeks to integrate these issues. It would also be possible to use the methods to determine flows needed to rehabilitate degraded systems.
Regional councils and communities would need to set the values they wish to protect to meet their water management objectives and that will determine what state of the resource they should relate the method or flow statistics to.
Last updated: 18 December 2008
