TAURANGA FRESHWATER MANAGEMENT TOOL – INTEGRATING WATERWAY PLANNING AT A CITY SCALE

C. Hellberg, R. Galimidi (City Waters Planning, Tauranga City Council), D. Bambic (Paradigm Environmental Ltd), A. Kirk (GHD) C. Clarke and D. Cox (Morphum Environmental Ltd) 

ABSTRACT 

Tauranga City Council (TCC) manages the three waters for NZs 5th largest city, home to approximately 160,000 people and covering 140 square kilometers. TCC owns and operates Water Supply, Wastewater and Stormwater infrastructure and through regulation and non-regulative policies manages land use and activities alongside the Environmental Regulator, Bay of Plenty Regional Council (BoPRC). 

TCC in partnership with Morphum Environmental, Paradigm Environmental and GHD are producing a Freshwater Management Tool to better understanding the environmental impacts of their water abstractions and stormwater discharges, and identify optimal solutions in support of improved water management generally, and specifically in preparation to meet Regional objectives/ targets under the NPS-FM. The model is based on USEPA LSPC and Sustain modelling of the TCC catchments as utilized for Auckland and KMR FWMT projects. The process has involved engagement with Iwi, and with the regional and neighboring councils to ensure integration of the best available local knowledgeand relevance of the model outputs to decision making in the region. 

Some of the TCC stormwater and water supply catchments have extensive upstream subcatchments within WBoP District Council areas, and therefore the model domain adopts ki uta ki tai (mountains to sea) approach of modelling the entire catchments aside from the more extensive Wairoa and Kaituna Rivers.

Long abstract can be viewed below