Integrated Catchment Management Planning in Auckland, New Zealand — Experiences and Lessons Learned

Stormwater is recognised as having the largest impact on the Auckland region's freshwater and marine ecosystems with flow-on adverse impacts on the social, cultural and economic values of the regional community. Furthermore, one of Auckland's greatest challenges is to enable growth to occur in the region while maintaining and enhancing the quality of life and the environment. Since 2004, the Auckland Regional Council (ARC), through the Stormwater Action Plan, have provided contributory funding assistance (i.e. subsidies) to Territorial Authorities (local government) to prepare Integrated Catchment Management Plans (ICMP's) that follow an ICMP Funding Guideline. A review of ICMP's prepared to date has identified several challenges to achieve outcomes intended from the contributory funding assistance: (1) The potential benefits of ICMP's are not fully recognised within most Territorial Authorities, (2) ICMP's are best developed as planning tools and (3) many Territorial Authorities do not fully recognise that ICMP's are planning tools developed and owned by the Territorial Authorities. As a result of the review, it was proposed to amend the ICMP Funding Guideline to clarify the philosophy, scope and purpose of ICMP's, and to more clearly reflect the original purpose of the contributory funding assistance as stated in the Stormwater Action Plan. A critical first step in this review process was to ensure that there is a good understanding and acceptance within the ARC to amend the ICMP Funding Guideline. The subsequent step was to approach the Territorial Authorities for their input. The final step, after promoting awareness, is to improve the process of ICMP preparation, particularly clarification of technical components within the ICMP funding guideline, which the ARC has acknowledged is due to the limited direction provided in some instances. The ARC's current strategy is to improve the preparation and implementation of ICMP's based on five `legs': Awareness, Improvement, Guideline, Education, and Future.