Innovative tools for water management
An innovative new tool – the waterwheel – will be an important component in a new project recently funded by the ministry of science and innovation.
The Waterwheel project is a partnership between Aqualinc, Landcare Research, AgResearch and Tipa Associates which aims to capitalise on the power of collaborative approaches for managing water allocation and protecting water quality.
Regional and unitary councils are increasingly setting limits on river flows, bulk water allocation and water quality at the scales of catchment, sub-catchment and water management zone. The Waterwheel project examines how to set and implement such limits collaboratively with water users and stakeholders, and how to sheet home the responsibility to individual water and land users, while achieving acceptable cultural, economic and social outcomes.
The WaterWheel itself is a single, visual representation of the ‘health’ of a catchment or water management zone with each spoke of the wheel representing an indicator of environmental, social, cultural or economic variables. The idea is a visual tool which can be used by water users at a sub catchment level, community groups at a catchment scale, industry bodies such as energy companies, and agribusiness and policy agents at the catchment, region and national scale.
Landcare Research scientist Andrew Fenemor says at present there is no real means for water users at a sub catchment scale to understand, and therefore actively manage, the impacts of their decisions on both flow and quality states. “The cumulative impact of many users requires both individual and collective responsibility for actions. At present there are few examples of collective institutions in place at nested scales to deliver agreed catchment outcomes. Most decisions around water use will still be taken to optimise an economic output with little understanding of the flow-on consequences of these actions for environmental as well as social and cultural outcomes,” he says.
This programme aligns with Land and Water Forum recommendations, SWIM and MfE targets, and addresses Ground Water Forum critical issues by designing improved institutional arrangements. It fills a research gap by developing a tool and process for setting limits which balance the values of communities, and improve water use and quality at a variety of scales.
The programme was developed through an equally innovative initiative, the ‘Freshwater Sandpit’ research planning process last March and imported from Europe. The ‘sandpit’ was an intensive, week-long brainstorming session to develop creative research projects.
As the proposal notes “The distinguishing feature of this research is that we are aligning and integrating institutional behaviour to our understanding of the physical dynamics of water movement through the medium of a tool and process that will allow feedback between collective actions and the meeting of environmental, social, cultural and economic states. Matauranga Māori is integral to the institutional design and the development of the tool. The research will be informed by literature, analysis of existing case studies and workshops, and a proof of concept will be tested in two sub catchments (yet to be determined).
The outputs will be unique and innovative because they are the product of an interdisciplinary research approach integrating social science with economics, political governance, collective learning and environmental science. A new collaborative governance design will be developed to manage water and land to meet acceptable standards in line with environmental, social, economic values.”
The Waterwheel research team includes John Bright (Aqualinc), Andrew Fenemor (Landcare Research), Liz Wedderburn (AgResearch) and Gail Tipa, plus international input from scientists from Europe who attended the Sandpit. The programme builds on research completed in integrated catchment management (ICM), the Pastoral 21 environment programme and various regional council catchment projects. As Andrew Fenemor notes “We’d like to get to the point where catchment landowners think about doing their Waterwheel accounts when they do their GST reconciliations every 1-2 months”