Assessing Indicators of Cultural Well-Being in an Urban Stormwater Decision Support System

Assessments of urban development projects often neglect, isolate or defer recognition and provision for manawhenua values. A decision support system (DSS) developed to evaluate outcomes of alternative urban development and stormwater management scenarios on freshwater and estuarine water bodies takes a different approach. Cultural well-being is considered as part of an integrated assessment of indicators of the four well-beings. Predictions of the levels of cultural well-being indicators rely on three sets of information: assessments by manawhenua of the extent of their interests in a catchment (for instance land ownership, significant sites and access to water bodies); assessment of the extent to which development proposals recognise and provide for these interests (for instance restoring degraded or lost waterbodies and providing for cultural uses); and results from water quality and stream ecological models embedded in the DSS. The indicators, assessment methods and associated DSS inputs were identified through hui with members of the central Canterbury Te Ngai Tuahuriri Rūnanga. Having been integrated into the DSS, the methods are being evaluated via a series of case studies of current and proposed urban development projects in the peri-urban areas around Christchurch. While the indicators are limited to giving a relative assessment of the extent to which urban development caters for manawhenua interests, and are in no way intended as a replacement for direct engagement, their value lies in providing a basis for at least a screening-level cultural assessment that is integrated and simultaneous with environmental, economic and social considerations.