What the data tells us about our water

All New Zealanders want a healthy environment, for the wellbeing of our children and future generations. An environment that is cared for, cares for us. Despite the efforts of individual farmers to care for our water, farming has been allowed to intensify and this concentrated food production has put huge pressure on freshwater. In some catchments, water quality is severely degraded.

By bringing together multiple data sources, we can now see which catchments are under the most pressure, and whether applying all known and emerging on-farm mitigations will ease this pressure by 2035. We can also say just how much better today’s water quality is, thanks to pragmatic and effective action by many land managers to care for the land over the past 20 years, compared to a scenario where no action was taken while the same intensification occurred. A pragmatic response to this data means accelerating this work and continuing to follow the research to undertake new responses.

Speakers

• Ton Snelder, director of Land Water People and member of the Land Use Suitability programme team, will share a map built from his research that illustrates current catchment total nitrogen excess (in kg/hectare) compared to regulatory limits
• Richard McDowell, chief scientist of Our Land and Water, will share new evidence on the high effectiveness of on-farm mitigations over 20 years, and how far mitigations can get us over the next 15 years.
• Research spotlight: Roger Young, group manager for freshwater sciences at the Cawthron Institute, will share a progress update on the Register of Land Management Actions programme's work to compile information on all mitigations being undertaken within a catchment

The Better Together webinar series

Our Land and Water invites you to four webinars to share research that brings together people, data, business and communities to responsibly care for our land and water.

Webinar 1: The vision
More diverse, resilient, healthy landscapes by 2030
Monday 30 November, 12–1pm

Webinar 2: The challenge
What the data tells us about our water
Monday 7 December, 12–1pm

Webinar 3: The solutions (part 1)
Connecting communities for effective farm plans
Monday 14 December, 12–1pm

Webinar 4: The solutions (part 2)
Bringing people together for diverse land use
Monday 21 December, 12–1pm