Challenges in Meeting the National Policy Statement for Freshwater in an Urban Setting

The National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPSFM) aims to support improved freshwater management in New Zealand. It does this by directing regional councils to establish objectives and set limits for fresh water in their regional plans.

The NPSFM also provides a procedural framework that directs how councils are to go about setting objectives, policies and rules about fresh water in their regional plans. They must do this by establishing freshwater management units across their regions and identifying the values that communities hold for the water in those areas. They are then required to gather water quality and quantity information on the water bodies to assess their current state and decide the water quality objective or goal for each value the community has chosen. Finally, they must agree (with the community) on timeframes to meet those goals.

The NPSFM also provides a set of nationally prescribed “bottom lines” for freshwater quality designed to preserve ecosystem health and human health (for recreation purposes). Importantly, while the NPSFM currently establishes objectives and bottom lines for some contaminants, the principal urban contaminants (such as sediment and heavy metals) are not yet covered. As Councils begin to work with communities to identify values, decide on relevant objectives and translate these into limits, they will find that delivering improved water quality in urbanised catchments is a particularly complex and potentially very costly undertaking – one that will require tailored approaches in greenfield and brownfield contexts.

This paper explains the context that led to the NPSFM and identifies the challenges that may arise as councils seek to apply it in an urban context.