State of Environment 2007

State of the Environment reports are produced by Hawke's Bay Regional Council each year on the major aspects of our environment.  Every 5 years there is a comprehensive report.  This information helps the  Hawke’s Bay to assess changes in their environment and the effect these might have on their lives.

NOTE -  Each section highlights key points, trends, specific incidents of note and work the Council has done in the year of the report.  Detailed technical reports on many of these aspects are also available on request from the Environmental Monitoring section, and may be more appropriate for business decisions and understanding issues in depth, than this summary.

On this page

Key topics in the latest report Land Rainfall patterns and river flow Surface water quality Groundwater quantity Groundwater quality Air quality The coast Recreational Water quality Research programme reports Earlier Reports Available

Key topics in the latest report

Monitoring highlights for 2007 include investigations into habitat preferences of trout in Hawke’s Bay rivers, Kaweka Lake water quality, air quality source apportionment studies in Hastings and wetland monitoring of a Ruataniwha farm.  A dryer climate impacted on Hawke’s Bay late autumn through to early winter resulting in a late season drought. 

For more information, read the introduction to the SOE Report 2007 below.

Land

• Council monitored soils under intensive pasture and cropping land uses in 2007.
•  Soil structure as measured by soil aggregate size is degraded in soils under vegetable cropping.
• Soil compaction is severe on some soils under bull beef.
• Total carbon is depleted in soils under vegetable cropping.
• Phosphorus levels are elevated in vegetable cropping soils and, to a lesser extent, in dairying soils.
• Nitrogen levels are elevated in soils under bull beef and dairying.
• Council monitored wetlands continue to improve.

Rainfall patterns and River Flow

• Regional rainfall was less than the long term average in 2007.
• River flows were lower than 30 year average.
• Development of habitat suitability curves specific to Hawke’s Bay rivers was undertaken. This will assist in refining minimum flows for the region.
• Late season drought affects Hawke’s Bay farmers.

Surface Water Quality

• Kaweka Lake is classified in excellent condition.
• Riverside wetland project shows improving water quality.

Groundwater Quantity

• Groundwater levels below normal late autumn to early winter.
• Groundwater levels above normal in late winter.

Groundwater Quality

• Groundwater in the larger Hawke’s Bay region is generally of good quality.
• The smaller Wairoa and Mahia aquifers have lower quality due to elevated chloride.
• There is no health impact of drinking groundwater in the entire area of Hawke’s Bay, based on the SoE monitoring network.

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

• Near shore coastal water quality is typical of NZ waters.
• Although mostly of good quality, some ‘point source’ contamination is evident in our estuaries.
• Lagoons can have up to 9,800 times more bacteria in the sediment than in the overlying water.  Coastal erosion was not as severe this year (2007).
• A new Waves Analysis project is providing information.

Recreational water quality

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 that underpin the 5 yearly summary reports are available.  These are used to assist in the review of planning documents, resource investigations and research directions.  Resulting policies to protect our resources are primarily developed in the Regional Resource Management Plan and the Regional Coastal Environment Plan, while activity programmes are actioned through the Long Term Council Community Plan.

Earlier reports available from this web site are: