Submission on MfE's Freshwater (Action for Healthy Waterways) Consultation

If you're interested in my submission to MfE's Freshwater (Action for Healthy Waterways) Consultation, I've pasted the text below, or you can see it as a pdf.

Personal submission on

Action for healthy waterways: A discussion document on national direction for our essential freshwater

This submission is from Prof Troy Baisden, holding the Bay of Plenty Regional Council Chair in Freshwater Science at the University of Waikato. My background spans watershed science and climate change, including a PhD in Soil Science from the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at the University of California, Berkeley. I have spent a significant proportion of 19 years in New Zealand research working across the science-policy interfaces. I am a Principal Investigator in Te Pūnaha Matatini, New Zealand’s transdisciplinary Centre of Research Excellence in complexity and networks.

I have contributed to the New Zealand Freshwater Sciences Society’s (NZFSS) submission and have led the New Zealand Association of Scientists submission. I support those submissions and refer to the NZFSS submission on detailed matters. Here, largely expand on or echo particular details in those submissions  – particularly those related to complexity and environment, or biogeochemistry, and that may overlap with reform of the Resource Management Act (RMA).

Summary Points:

1.     I fully support maintaining acceptable freshwater ecosystem health as the clarifying objective of the draft policy package, and the goal to signal limits where “too much is too much”.

2.     I argue that the objective of freshwater ecosystem health does not constitute a suitable or useable framework unifying the many detailed pieces of the policy package. A suitable framework must prioritise and integrate the ever-growing list of attributes defining ecosystem health.

3.     Serious risks to implementation of the package result from the omission of the watershed or catchment as the scale of the ecosystem in which health is considered, by excluding the relevant process and the associated land use and social science. Where nutrients and sediment are the contaminants of concern, concentration- and trend-based assessments should be converted to load-based assessments, which have been successfully applied in Taupo and Rotorua catchments and are the standard in the United States and Europe.

4.     National freshwater management is clearly a problem defined as Post-Normal Science (PNS) – high stakes, high uncertainty, urgency and values in dispute. Best practice in PNS has not been but should be implemented in this policy development, including the development of extended peer community initiated through dialogues or round tables and aimed at the development of a body acting in parallel to the Climate Change Commission.

5.     Transparent and successful implementation by regional councils can be enhanced by cycles of adaptive management including scientific assessment.

6.     Implementation of (4) and (5) may be undertaken with regard to Te Ao Māori so that processes form a national framework giving effect to Te Mana o te Wai in a manner recommended by Te Kahui Wai Māori and consistent with the recent report of the Waitangi Tribunal on Wai 2358

7.     Framework(s) solving problems and achieving implementation described in (2) – (6) should consider that research must extend beyond limit setting and be targeted to fair allocation and investment to achieve contaminant reductions from activity (e.g. on farm).

8.     Farm Environment Plans are a valuable step forward, and should record meaningful, transparent and auditable information that can be used to build trust and ratchet toward improved environmental performance.

9.     The five meter riparian exclusion proposal is an example of a detail requiring significant revision and further development within prioritised frameworks, to ensure the significant costs result in the large potential gains which will vary considerably with location and require detailed science development over time.

10.  I support the NZFSS submission on detailed areas of freshwater science as an update to the Science and Technical Advisory Group’s (STAG’s) recommendations, which I also support.

Full submission (following numbering in Summary).

(1) Freshwater ecosystem health

The objective of freshwater ecosystem health is a desirable goal well worth supporting. It could be enough that the Government considers the most recent election provided at mandate supporting this assertion, and that the value of this objective has also topped multiple statistically valid surveys of New Zealanders[1]. Or, as I stated in the New Zealand Herald[2]:

My analysis, based on understanding complexity and environmental science, is that we're at a tipping point.

It's not just about exceeding the limits of freshwater ecosystems to cope with pollution from agriculture. New Zealand seems to be at risk of losing the attractiveness of "clean, green" branding, because the world has become so connected. More tourists than ever before are roaming our landscapes, and messages and video on social media spread around the world in viral form. Alternatively, we have great potential to build on statistics showing we are among the most sustainable agricultural and horticultural producers in the word.

On one path that we're now trying to avoid, we find ourselves increasingly unable to explain away unsightly algae filling our iconic rivers and lakes.

On the other path, we may not have a perfect record, but can explain when and how we protected the water appropriately in each catchment, and how we pulled together the science and investment to do so.

If we're successful on the latter, we'll have developed durable, multi-faceted, and proactive solutions to complex challenges, and remained flexible and innovative.

The policy package for discussion sends the right messages if the goal is to firmly signal and end to end practices that are unsustainable and remain firmly on a high value path, moving away from what appears to be an economically unstable middle course. However, a key element of the transition to a high-value path for NZ agriculture needs to be clarified: how will the generation of value associated with environmental performance feedback to prime investment in improved environmental performance?

(2) Insufficient Framework

Imagine that international efforts to address climate change focussed on planetary health rather than iconic temperature targets (e.g. 2° C vs 1.5°C of warming) as the main communicated objective of global frameworks arising via the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. If this was the case, it seems logical to conclude that in contrast to the Paris Framework, there would be little or no useful framework addressing climate change. Similarly, the effect of the focus on freshwater ecosystem health does not yield a clear framework, for reasons explained below and in (3). Difficult problems demand careful frameworks.

The expansion of the list of attributes from a minimum set in previous versions of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management’s (NPS-FM’s) National Objectives Framework (NOF) to the current proposal is a significant change that dilutes the sense that there is a framework. Each added attribute is valid, and best estimates have been made nationally via the best possible processes. However, a prioritisation framework to ensure that the most locally important attributes receive focus is lacking. This potentially results in significant effort to dismiss or otherwise deal with nutrients in excess of bottom lines from geologic sources, even when they do not limit aquatic production. A mechanism of prioritising or integrating attributes is needed, ideally clarifying a chain of evidence linking distal causes (e.g. nutrients) to proximal causes (e.g. low dissolved oxygen) to impacts (e.g. lack of invertebrates or fish). Trophic Level Index (TLI) provides one such measure in lakes combining these features, but integrating total nitrogen and phosphorous (causes) as well as chlorophyll-a and Secchi depth. TLI is the primary basis for targets and action plans in the Rotorua Lakes, and also served as the framework within which total nitrogen was prioritised for management as the key limiting nutrient in Lake Taupo (Regional Plan Variation 5).

Overall, a framework for prioritising and/or integrating multiple attributes associated with ecosystem health is strongly recommended. Whereas cumulative greenhouse gas emissions drive future warming, clarified relationships between catchment nutrient balance and freshwater impacts are needed. Suggestions follow.

(3) Defining the ecosystem as the catchment or watershed

A compelling framework for grouping and managing freshwater ecosystem health has been developed by Clapcott et al (2018)[3]. However, management obviously requires defining the ecosystem as the catchment or watershed, rather than on the basis of life within a body of freshwater. In this sense, both the NOF and Clapcott et al. (2018) framework lack components needed in a complete framework representing land-based activities in catchments – considering the science of land use, and the social science related to human decision making and values from the levels of individuals to governance. Similarly, the STAG was tasked with a Terms of Reference (ToR) and composition inappropriate to consider these critical areas or develop and appropriate framework.

Frameworks that manage catchment ecosystem nutrient balance provide the logical link between agriculture and other sources in the catchment, and the receiving freshwater ecosystem (or an estuary). These frameworks have been successfully developed to manage loads reaching Lake Taupo[4] and Rotorua[5]. These methodologies are preferable because they are well developed[6]^,[7], can interpret mass balance from past monitoring[8] and usefully assess future scenarios[9] in the manner needed to support catchment-based water policy, and can be further improved. Assessments using loads is far more relevant to lakes and estuaries in particular, and is potentially interchangeable with concentrations in rivers and streams. 

Thus, load based (mass balance) assessment for nutrient balances at catchment and regional scales is recommended. This methodology is analogous to successful framework in climate change research of converting cumulative greenhouse gas emissions to an estimate of warming. It addresses the need to assess the state of ecosystems at catchment scale, and augments NOF and the freshwater ecosystem health framework proposed by Clapcott et al. (2018). Combining catchment-wide mass balance with process-based models of a lake ecosystem has already provided the prospective stressor-response relationships[10] for Rotorua[11]. By maintaining a clear chain of mass-balance and process-based models, this approach achieves high quality assessment while avoiding the concern stated at the outset of the development of pressure-state-response framework for environmental indicators:

Indicators are not designed to provide a full picture of environmental issues, but rather to help reveal trends and draw attention to phenomena or changes that require further analyses and possible action. Indicators are thus only one tool for evaluation; scientific and policy-oriented interpretation is required for them to acquire their full meaning. They need to be supplemented by other qualitative and scientific information, particularly in explaining driving forces behind indicator changes which form the basis for an assessment.[12]

As the OECD approach noted above sensibly underlies the trend assessment in used for Environmental Reporting in New Zealand (e.g. trends assessment in Environment Aotearoa 2019), it is important that trend assessment is not substituted for more appropriate mass-balance and process-based modelling assessments. Consideration of specific limits, including nitrogen and phosphorous remains recommended practice in environmental science[13] and has been usefully expanded to directly address the Government’s Wellbeing Framework[14]. However, MfE/Stats Environmental Reporting Indicators framework and trend assessment provides an ideal framework for extending robust quantitative frameworks for nutrient and water management to enable integration across multiple stressors, including climate change.

(4) Incorporating ‘Post-Normal Science’

For over 25 years, recognition of Post-Normal Science^[15] (PNS) has grown in areas such as climate change and large-scale watershed management. Characteristics of problems requiring PNS include high stakes, high uncertainty, urgency and values in dispute. 

Mechanisms to address PNS include^[16] explicit management of uncertainty; coordination of diverse perspectives to mix science with business, politics and society; and extension of the scientific peer community to include social, political and economic dimensions. Thus, the policy package addresses a problem clearly defined as PNS, yet these three mechanisms appear missing from the process, including the advisory group structure and discussion documents. Perhaps this is not surprising, as recognition of the need for environmental scientists to engage (as social scientist do) with social, economic and political dimensions to frame issues and problems is now common internationally, but remains uncommon in New Zealand. The mechanisms addressing PNS can be added as a next step, as they are generally recognised as complementary to the advisory processes used to form the policy package. 

A logical process consistent with PNS would be the formation of the Commission recommended by multiple advisory groups, designed in parallel to the proposed Climate Commission, and presumably sharing some sectoral membership and representation of Te Ao Māori. To design and achieve this, invited dialogues or roundtables provide a useable model of scientists interacting with an extended peer community to ensure the problem and solutions are well framed. An example of such a process was the round-table dialogues run on climate change topics under Chatham House rules by VUW School of Policy and Governance (hosted by Adrian Macey and Colin James) during the development of the Paris Framework on climate change. Such processes might also build on the Land and Water Forum (LAWF), but only after reviewing structure and suitability, in relation to reasons for the lack of implementation of LAWF recommendations.

(5) Include Cycles of Adaptive Management and Scientific Assessment

An obvious and well-developed approach consistent with PNS for addressing complex issues[17], that can achieve enhanced effectiveness through RMA reform is Adaptive Management, including a scientific assessment process[18]. Adaptive management and assessment processes on appropriate cycles can reduce the need for excessive detail and/or predictive modelling prior to implementation and enhance transparency. Such assessments provide a specific approach to satisfy requirements for review in s79 of the RMA and have been pioneered in plan changes managing nutrient loads to lakes in the Taupo[19] and Rotorua[20][21]catchments. I therefore suggest incorporating assessment cycle in the National Policy or Environmental Statements, or RMA reform, to strengthen the transparent enforcement of objectives, building on review requirements in s79 of the RMA. 

Requirement for transparent assessments meeting relevant criteria will maintain ongoing scrutiny on regional councils that have a record of allowing intensification and development inconsistent with freshwater ecosystem health. It would do so in a way that the current proposal simply requiring a minimum limit setting requirement to remove catchments from the schedule in the National Environmental Statement does not.

(6) Incorporating Te Mana o te Wai

There remains a need for improved engagement with a full view of Te Mana o te Wai within Te Ao Māori, consistent with the report of the Kahui Wai Māori and the recent report of the Waitangi Tribunal on Wai 2358. To improve inclusion of Te Mana o te Wai, I recommend giving regard to Te Ao Māori as part of the two recommendations above, including recognising diverse perspectives using a PNS framework, and transparency using well-staged adaptive management and assessment cycles. Doing so avoids the marginalisation[22] of Te Ao Māori by fragmented but detailed policy in the same way that scientific understanding of the functioning of the catchment ecosystems (potentially represented by mass balance and process-based models) has been marginalised by the draft policy package.

(7) Beyond the limits: allocation and fairness require science focus

Having worked during my career (publications spanning 25 years) across three main limit setting issues (acid rain, climate change, and water quality) it seems increasingly crucial to share an observation that explains why climate change and water quality mitigation prove more difficult than acid rain did. Science to support the process is almost always funded and directed at identifying appropriate limits, and then used with little or no adjustment to address issues of allocation and fairness – describing who can maintain what level of activity underneath the new limit. Frameworks must be developed to consider allocation and fairness from the beginning as key areas where science and information is needed. Poor information provision can enhance the inequity felt as a result of grand-parenting. The two main needs are a greater focus on historic scenarios and more detailed assessment that is reliable at the scale of activity (e.g. farms) rather than simply at the policy scale. The classic example is rolling out a policy-scale map, which then faces the criticism, “that doesn’t look right on my farm.”

This issue is a source of concerns regarding Te Tiriti o Waitangi (detailed in the recent report of the Waitangi Tribunal on Wai 2358) and wider iwi rights and interests. It is a key source of litigation that may be difficult to resolve through RMA reform alone and as a result may be a significant source of delay and uncertainty, and one that therefore prevents both innovation and investment.

(8) Meaningful Farm Environment Plans are a way forward

Farm Environment Plans (or Land Environment Plans) accomplish a number of essential goals. First, they achieve and demonstrate consideration of environmental goals in a manner which should ultimately consider a range of environmental impacts, including those on freshwater as well as greenhouse gas emissions. The plans are an opportunity to record and integrate at a catchment scale meaningful, transparent and auditable information. This information can be used to build trust at multiple scales, including ensuring the neighbour across the fence is doing their part, that upper and lower catchments are contributing fairly, and demonstrate performance nationally and internationally including the development of value-added environmental credentials resembling organic or carbon-zero certification. And, like the national contributions within the Paris Framework for climate change action, Farm Environment Plans provide a means to ‘ratchet’ one-way toward improved environmental performance. To achieve all these goals, auditable or certified Farm Environment Plans should be meaningful (not box-ticking), transparent sources of information, and widely implemented.

(9) Five meter riparian exclusions might work, but where?

The five meter riparian exclusion was a common source of questions during MfE’s consultation meetings. However, it was apparent that STAG did not recommend this. Although I generally prefer to refer to NZFSS submission regarding detailed policies, I believe this provides a clear example where the imposition of details without a scientific or wider framework leads to confusion, frustration, and potentially contentious polarisation.

With regard to benefits of exclusions and riparian buffers to improve nitrate removal, international literature expands on the limited New Zealand evidence[23].  The role of wetlands and riparian buffers adjacent to springs and first order streams in nitrogen removal has long been recognised internationally[24].  A high-profile strategy for global management of the nitrogen cycle recommends that one of five key solutions focus on “wetland and riparian restoration,” noting also that engineered restoration may be more effective than natural environments in removing nitrogen[25].  However, a review of well-cited literature on hot spots of nitrate mobilisation and removal[26] suggests a lack of efficiency resulting from the establishment of riparian buffers of roughly uniform width, e.g., the proposal of 5 meters.  Instead, the review suggests that targeted “control points” for contaminant management can be identified in a manner that would be consistent with rules in regional or catchment plans and implemented through Farm Environment Plans. Similar conclusions can be drawn for other contaminants, which are likely to show different dynamics from nitrate.

Ultimately, riparian and wetland restoration is likely be highly effective, but only if well targeted using knowledge that remains to be developed over time, and that is specific to local conditions. The basis for this recommendation raises concerns about the lack of a prioritised framework with appropriate scientific input. It is useful to suggest improved recognition of key principles of contaminant reduction[27]. In addition, the high (and contentious costs) of a five meter exclusion, or similar levels of riparian and wetland restoration, should better consider how the benefits achieved can be matched to investment in farm-scale innovation that captures value from environmental achievement. 

The blanket five meter exclusion should be converted to a guideline to develop and monitor the benefits of riparian and wetland restoration as part of the implementation of Farm Environment Plans on a Freshwater Management Unit or Regional basis.

More widely, extension of this example to other areas of highly detailed proposal that lack a clear basis in a framework raise the concern that considerations of prioritising time and investment for major stakeholders have not been considered and lack a clear basis for consideration. These stakeholders include farmers and industry, iwi/hapū, community groups and NGOs, regional councils, and the science workforce. (See further detail in NZAS submission.)

(10) Support for detailed submission of NZFSSS

I reiterate my support for the NZFSS submission on detailed areas of freshwater science as an update to the Science and Technical Advisory Group’s (STAG’s) recommendations, which I also generally support.

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[1] Example: Lincoln Public Perceptions Survey 2016 https://hdl.handle.net/10182/9543 (accessed 31 Oct 2019).

[2] https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12278288 (accessed 31 Oct 2019)

[3] Clapcott J, Young R, Sinner J, Wilcox M, Storey R, Quinn J, Daughney C, Canning A, 2018. Freshwater biophysical ecosystem health framework. Prepared for Ministry for the Environment. Cawthron Report No. 3194. 89 p.

[4] Regional Plan Variation 5 inserted as 3.10 in Waikato Regional Plan. https://www.waikatoregion.govt.nz/assets/WRC/Council/Policy-and-Plans/Rules-and-regulation/WRP/Chapter-3-Water-Module-Operative-Waikato-Regional-Plan-to-include-NESPF-amendments-as-at-9th-August-2019.pdf (Accessed 30 October 2019)

[5] Notified version of Plan Change 10. https://cdn.boprc.govt.nz/media/508998/n-lake-rotorua-nutrient-management-plan-change-10-version-4-for-notification-29-february-2016-copy.pdf (Accessed 30 October 2019)

[6] Parfitt RL, Schipper LA, Baisden WT, Elliott AH 2006. Nitrogen inputs and outputs for New Zealand in 2001 at national and regional scales. Biogeochemistry 80(1): 71-88.

[7] Parfitt RL, Baisden WT, Elliott AH 2008. Phosphorus inputs and outputs for New Zealand in 2001 at national and regional scales. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 38(1): 37-50.

[8] Parfitt RL, Stevenson BA, Dymond JR, Schipper LA, Baisden WT, Ballantine DJ 2012. Nitrogen inputs and outputs for New Zealand from 1990 to 2010 at national and regional scales. New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research 55(3): 241-262.

[9] Parfitt RL, Baisden WT, Schipper LA, Mackay AD 2008. Nitrogen inputs and outputs for New Zealand at national and regional scales: past, present and future scenarios. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 38(2): 71-87.

[10] Larned ST, Schallenberg M 2018. Stressor-response relationships and the prospective management of aquatic ecosystems. New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research 53(4): 489-512.

[11] See module 5 and 6: https://www.rotorualakes.co.nz/plan-change-10-science-review (accessed 31 October 2019)

[12] p 14  in OECD (2003) OECD Environmental Indicators: Development, Measurement and Use. https://www.oecd.org/env/indicators-modelling-outlooks/24993546.pdf (accessed 30 October 2019).

[13] Steffen W, Richardson K, Rockström J, Cornell SE, Fetzer I, Bennett EM, Biggs R, Carpenter SR, De Vries W, De Wit CA and others 2015. Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science 347(6223).

[14] Raworth K 2017. Doughnut economics: seven ways to think like a 21st-century economist, Chelsea Green Publishing.

[15] Funtowicz SO, Ravetz JR 1993. Science for the post-normal age. Futures 25(7): 739-755.

[16] Petersen AC, Cath A, Hage M, Kunseler E, van der Sluijs JP 2011. Post-Normal Science in Practice at the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. Science, technology & human values 36(3): 362-388.

[17] Kay JJ, Regier HA, Boyle M, Francis G 1999. An ecosystem approach for sustainability: addressing the challenge of complexity. Futures 31(7): 721-742.

[18] Holling CS 1978. Adaptive environmental assessment and management. In: International Series on Applied Systems Analysis. Brisbane, Wiley.

[19] Policy 5, p 3-189 in Regional Plan Variation 5 inserted as 3.10 in Waikato Regional Plan. https://www.waikatoregion.govt.nz/assets/WRC/Council/Policy-and-Plans/Rules-and-regulation/WRP/Chapter-3-Water-Module-Operative-Waikato-Regional-Plan-to-include-NESPF-amendments-as-at-9th-August-2019.pdf (Accessed 30 October 2019)

[20] Method LR M2 in notified version of Plan Change 10. https://cdn.boprc.govt.nz/media/508998/n-lake-rotorua-nutrient-management-plan-change-10-version-4-for-notification-29-february-2016-copy.pdf (Accessed 30 October 2019)

[21] The first review has been completed. https://www.rotorualakes.co.nz/plan-change-10-science-review (accessed 31 October 2019)

[22] See Chp 11. Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. Decolonizing Methodologies : Research and Indigenous Peoples. Zed Books, 2012. 

[23] McDowell RW, Cox N, Snelder TH 2017. Assessing the Yield and Load of Contaminants with Stream Order: Would Policy Requiring Livestock to Be Fenced Out of High-Order Streams Decrease Catchment Contaminant Loads? J Environ Qual 46(5): 1038-1047.

[24] Peterson BJ, Wollheim WM, Mulholland PJ, Webster JR, Meyer JL, Tank JL, Martí E, Bowden WB, Valett HM, Hershey AE and others 2001. Control of Nitrogen Export from Watersheds by Headwater Streams. Science 292(5514): 86-90.

[25] Houlton BZ, Almaraz M, Aneja V, Austin AT, Bai E, Cassman KG, Compton JE, Davidson EA, Erisman JW, Galloway JN and others 2019. A world of co-benefits: Solving the global nitrogen challenge. Earths Future 7: 1-8.

[26] Bernhardt ES, Blaszczak JR, Ficken CD, Fork ML, Kaiser KE, Seybold EC 2017. Control Points in Ecosystems: Moving Beyond the Hot Spot Hot Moment Concept. Ecosystems 20(4): 665-682.

[27] https://theconversation.com/six-ways-to-improve-water-quality-in-new-zealands-lakes-and-rivers-95049 (accessed 31 October 2019)