Search all sites near me now
Search your favourite swimming spots

Otago region

Actions for Healthy Waterways

Otago's diverse catchments include major river systems such as the Clutha/Mata-Au, Taieri, and Manuherikia, as well as numerous lakes, wetlands, and aquifers. Land use across the region varies from productive agriculture and urban development to areas dominated by native vegetation. Water quality tends to be best in upland areas with predominantly native vegetation, while lowland rivers and streams in agricultural zones often experience elevated levels of nutrients, sediments, and bacteria.

To address these challenges, the Otago Regional Council takes an integrated catchment management approach, collaborating with communities, iwi, and stakeholders to develop and implement Catchment Action Plans. These plans focus on practical actions such as riparian planting, stream restoration, and sustainable land management practices to mitigate the impacts of land use on water quality.

Community groups play a vital role in these efforts, working alongside council to identify local issues and implement tailored solutions. Through these collaborative efforts, Otago locals aim to preserve and improve the health of their freshwater ecosystems, ensuring they continue to support the region's environmental, cultural, and economic well-being.

The data and stories shown in this topic are sourced from the Healthy Waterways register and are not independently validated by the LAWA project. The information in the register come from councils, industry organisations, and catchment groups. The information may be incomplete and may not necessarily reflect the views of LAWA partner agencies. The topic is designed to showcase actions being taken that could provide inspiration and encouragement to others and help with our future understanding of which actions makes the most difference to the health of waterways depending on the catchment context.

Region snapshot

There has been significant investment in improving freshwater in this region. Over time, the tiles below will provide a snapshot of the projects, time and money spent on recorded actions, and number of organisations who have reported their efforts in the Healthy Waterways register. We encourage you to add your efforts in the register so we can understand the collective investment and efforts made to improve waterways in this region.

24

Land Management Projects recorded

0

Hours spent restoring our catchments

$0

Money spent restoring our catchments

6

Registered organisations restoring our catchments

Select a catchment with recorded actions underway

About this topic

Throughout New Zealand, there are many initiatives underway to improve water quality – some are regulatory, some are voluntary – they involve action by individuals, iwi/hapū, communities, industry, and central and local government. Over the last decade, there has been a big increase in funding through national funding such as Jobs for Nature, through regional and unitary council funding, through not-for-profit organisations, and through iwi/hapū.

Despite these actions, the pace of water quality improvement is not keeping up with most of our expectations. Is this because the actions are not the right actions? Or is there much greater intensity and scale needed? To answer these questions, we need consistent information on what actions are occurring where and to what extent.

 

Healthy Waterways – the national register of actions

This topic sources data and stories from the Healthy Waterways register, which was developed by the Our Land and Water - National Science Challenge. If your organisation has actions data or stories to share, please visit healthywaterways.nz, to get added to the register, so you can share your mahi.

 

We are at the start of this journey

At present this topic contains a snapshot of actions that have been entered by organisations into the register and that they have agreed to make publicly available. More information will be reported as people document their work and it becomes available to share. The aim is that over time the register will record all actions underway and track our collective progress year by year.

If the register is widely used, this information will help us understand the benefits of our actions on water quality and scale of the effort still needed to meet our expectations for water quality and freshwater ecosystems.

 

Actions and stories

The actions reported in the register are: stock exclusion, riparian planting, erosion control, wetland protection and restoration, and farm plans. These were chosen based on reviewing multiple catchment initiatives and selecting the most common actions underway to improve waterways.

The topic includes narratives or stories from the Healthy Waterways register. Research has revealed a strong desire for people to be able to add their stories, and explain innovative actions, monitoring or other initiatives that did not fit with the quantitative indicators of action. By sharing their stories, organisations can inform their local communities about the work they are doing and help other groups who are already or thinking about taking action within their own catchment to improve water quality. 

  • Stock exclusion

    How this action contributes to improved water quality

    Overview
  • Riparian planting

    How this action contributes to improved water quality

    Overview
  • Wetland protection

    How this action contributes to improved water quality

    Overview
  • Erosion control

    How this action contributes to improved water quality

    Overview
  • Farm plans

    How this action contributes to improved water quality

    Overview
  • Action stories

    How action stories contribute to improved water quality

    Overview

Time and spend

The hours and money spent on all actions can be recorded in the register. This information is summarised at the regional scale on the landing page for each region alongside the number of organisations and the number of land management projects recorded.

 

Freshwater Biodiversity Monitoring Guide

This guide lays out a monitoring framework to assess the success of freshwater restoration actions. Some actions will show results quickly, but restoration actions targeted at achieving long-term biodiversity outcomes may take decades for improvements to be seen.

Freshwater Biodiversity Monitoring Guide