Sharing Riparian Planning Data
The Riparian Planner
Data sharing will help farmers to deliver one set of information about the management of their riparian zones for multiple purposes.
During 2017, we workshopped the opportunity to share data from the Riparian Planner tool to support farm planning and other data requirements for farming support organisations including regional councils. Data sharing will help farmers deliver one set of information about the management of their riparian zones for multiple purposes; updates in the on-line tool can be made available at the click of a button to their agreed partner organisations. Aggregated data can then be used to review actions and plans at a catchment scale and for reporting progress towards water quality goals. This project, supported by Greater Wellington and Northland Regional Councils, Living Water, and DairyNZ, will deliver a Riparian Planner data-sharing service, including the collaborative development of a riparian data schema.
About the Planner
The Planner is a free-to-use, digital, farmer-friendly tool that promotes on farm riparian management actions. It is supported by DairyNZ and developed by Manaaki Whenua- Landcare Research in collaboration with a number of regional councils and industry groups. Since its launch in 2016 almost 1800 farmers – from across all farming sectors and all regions – have signed up and created a riparian plan.
www.dairynz.co.nz/environment/waterways/riparian-planner
Riparian Planner is supported under a Service Level Agreement with DairyNZ, which ensures it is maintained and continues to be available free-of-charge to farmers. The opportunities for other parties to join the collaborative development of the tool are enabled through an agreement between DairyNZ and Manaaki Whenua and we continue to explore ways to make the tool attractive to farmers and appropriate for regional councils and industry.
The Riparian Planner Collaboration
The Greater Wellington Regional Council Land Management team utilise Riparian Planner with land owners when they apply for funding for planting, and through this work have gained good knowledge of how the tool works and how people like to use it. They made some suggestions for improvements and we are currently pressure, testing these before release. These changes mainly focus on increasing the information supplied in the pdf report so that it stands better on its own without the need to refer to the online plan.
Farmers in your region will already be utilising Riparian Planner. To find out more about the tool or how to get involved in the collaborative development and data sharing, please contact either Margaret Watts or Christine Harper.