The Southland Water and Land Plan seeks to address activities that are known to have a significant effect on water quality, such as land use intensification, wintering and stock access to waterways. In order to understand what the water quality is like in a catchment, the Schedule X – Catchments of degraded water bodies where improvement in water quality is required mapping tool has been developed. This mapping tool will be a key part in preparing Farm Environmental Management Plans in Southland. The data set
is the product of numerous expert conferences required by the Environment Court
to determine which waterbodies in Southland are ‘degraded’ or ‘not degraded’
based on a range of criteria/indicators. The Joint Witness Statements produced
at the expert conferences are available on the Environment Southland
website.
