The sound management of Hawke's Bay’s fresh water resources is a key strategic issue for the Hawke's Bay Regional Council. Council wishes to ensure that water management issues relevant to Hawke's Bay are being addressed in a timely, competent and efficient manner. It accordingly commissioned this independent Review which was undertaken by Environmental Management Services Limited in February 2006.
A large number of recommended actions have been identified under a range of issue headings and have been assigned a priority of low, medium or high.
Despite the large number of recommended actions, the overall approach of the Council to water management is appropriate and well targeted to Hawke's Bay’s water management issues.
Importantly, areas of potential improvement identified had already mostly been targeted by Council as requiring further work and it is now simply a matter of concluding the necessary actions in a timely and robust manner.
The Review identified the main priorities for Council action as:
- establishing groundwater allocation limits;
- the managed distribution of surface water to various activity types within established allocatable volumes;
- earthworks management;
- stormwater management;
- managing and regulating land use change and land use intensification;
- facilitating hapu level iwi input into water management processes and the development of iwi management plans.
Water Review Report 2006 - PDF File - 1.3Mb Download