State of Environment 2006

State of the Environment reports are produced by Hawke's Bay Regional Council each year with a comprehensive report every 5 years on the major aspects of our environment. The Council provides this information to give the Hawke’s Bay public a useful means of assessing changes in their environment and the effect these might have on their lives.

Research Programmes and Reports

The regional council manages a variety of resource monitoring programmes to research the state of the Hawke’s Bay environment. Detailed technical reports are also available that underpin the 5 yearly summary reports. The reports are used to assist in the review of planning documents, resource investigations and research directions. Policies to protect our resources are primarily developed in the Regional Resource Management Plan and the Regional Coastal Environment Plan and activity programmes actioned through the Long Term Council Community Plan.

Key topics in the latest report 2006

Each section highlights key points, trends, specific incidents of note and work the Council has done in the year of the report. Details technical reports on many of these aspects are available on request from the Environmental Monitoring section, Hawke's Bay Regional Council.

As in previous editions, each section highlights key points, trends, specific incidents of note and work the Council has done in the past year.  This year a number of new monitoring programmes were either started or completed as a result of a long term strategic look at the resource monitoring and investigations. The reporting on these will add to our understanding of the region’s environment.  Highlights for this year include: investigations into cadmium accumulation in Hawke’s Bay soils, identification of the extent of potential irrigable land, cyanobacteria blooms, sources of air contaminants within Hastings and Napier, and the extent of antifouling contamination within Napier’s inner harbour.

Download the full introduction to the State of the Environment Report 2006 below.

Land

• Cadmium is accumulating in our agricultural sols as a contaminant by-product of fertilisers, but the levels in Hawke's Bay soils are still well within acceptable guidelines and are generally lower than the national average.
• The Regional Council has compiled a Land Monitoring Strategy that sets out Council's land monitoring commitments over the next 5 years. The strategy includes some new programmes such as soil erosion monitoring and soil quality monitoring.

Rainfall patterns and River Flow

• Regional rainfall was close to the long term norm in 2006.
• River flows were marginally higher than average.
• A strategy was developed linking monitoring and research objectives.

Surface Water Quality

• Algal bloom research and monitoring have been increased.
• Urban streams have lower water quality compared to streams in rural areas.
• Ecosystem health and stream habitat is similar between plantation forestry streams and native catchments.

Groundwater

• Groundwater levels were normal for 2006.
• There were above level groundwater levels from May to August.

Air quality

• Fine particle concentrations exceeded the National Environmental Standards (NES) for air quality on 13 days in Hastings and 5 days in Napier.
• A Source Apportionment study in Hastings confirmed that during the winter domestic heating is the main contributor to PM₁₀.
• Contributions of ‘natural’ PM₁₀ sources (sea spray and soil) are 13% during the winter months in Hastings.

The coast

• Contaminant levels in estuary sediments do not appear to be a concern.
• Antifoulant contamination appears localised.
• Several major storms in Hawke's Bay impacted on coastal erosion and the shoreline of Hawke Bay was noticeably active in the year.

Recreational water quality

• Hawke's Bay's marine recreation sites generally have high water quality, and exceedances of national guidelines are rare and short-lived.
• River and lagoon waters are more vulnerable to exceedances, as they are less well flushed.
• Some improvements in water quality at freshwater sites is evident.
• Four out of five sites were suitable for shellfish gathering based on seasonal medians.

Earlier reports available from this web site are: