Integrated water quality monitoring project begins in the Waitaki

Work towards an integrated water quality monitoring framework in the Waitaki catchment has begun.

The Lower Waitaki- South Coastal Canterbury Zone Committee will hear about progress made towards the proposed framework at its first meeting on February 17.

The committee, one of 10 water management zone committees in Canterbury, is responsible for developing effective water management solutions which deliver economic, social, cultural and environmental outcomes which align with the values of their local community.

Both the Upper and Lower Waitaki zone committees recommended in their Zone Implementation Programme (ZIP) addendum that they wanted an integrated water quality monitoring framework in place.

The aim of the programme is to share data between ECan and the community more efficiently, measure the effectiveness of the Waitaki chapter of the Canterbury Land and Water Regional Plan and to provide data for future reviews of nutrient limits.

Currently, water quality data is being collected by Environment Canterbury, consent holders, and community groups, but there is no one place where the data collected from all parties is available.

The system would combine and consolidate water monitoring data gathered by Environment Canterbury and the Waitaki community to see which areas were being monitored, and which areas needed to be monitored.

The programme also hopes to align data gathering methods throughout the groups to provide some consistency in monitoring projects. Eventually the data would be collated and made public online.

Lower Waitaki Zone Committee meeting

Wednesday 17 February 2016, 1:15pm
Waimate District Council Chambers

Click here for the agenda

ENDS

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