Northland Strategic Irrigation Infrastructure Study Northland Strategic Irrigation Infrastructure Study Aqualinc Gain Canterbury Regional Council Approval Aqualinc have been accredited by CRC and are now an approved supplier of data logger and telemetry technology and an authorized data service provider. The recording, collection and reporting of data is a fast moving sector of the water industry. Gaining this CRC approval is an important step in being able to actively contribute to helping the irrigation industry manage water more effectively. Measuring water use is becoming a legal obligation. CRC have started the process of getting meters on water takes. In recent years this has been a condition of resource consents issued in Canterbury. Despite this, the majority of water takes do not yet have water meters installed. PREPARED FOR: CRC also began their large scale push to ensure they know how much groundwater is being pumped, Northland Regional Council with water metering being part of the Rakaia Selwyn consent review process. Following that review, the CRC plan was to review consents in other groundwater allocation zones and, through that process, add conditions that require water meters and data loggers. The CRC consent reviews will still take place to mitigate the effects shallow bores may have on streams and to add seasonal volumes. PREPARED BY: REVIEWED BY: However, the Government has stepped in with regulations that require the installation of water meters. This does not only affect Canterbury. Most water takes throughout New Zealand will have to Chris Frost - Opus comply.Stephen McNally - Opus The regulation requires that by July 2012 all takes greater than 20l/s must be metered, by July 2014 Louise Algeo - Opus all takesKel greater Sandersonthan 10l/s must be metered and by July- 2016BERL all takes greater than 5l/s are to be metered. Sheryl Paine - Opus ThereIan are three typesMcIndoe of commonly used flow -meters Aqualinc ‐ electromagnetic, mechanical and ultra‐sonic. Electromagnetic flow meters are the most reliable and have the longest time between calibrations. Mechanical meters are cheaper, but will wear out faster as they have moving parts. Ultra‐sonic Natalia Fareti - BERL meters ‘clamp‐on’ to the outside of the pipe, eliminating the need to cut into existing Channa Rajanayaka - Aqualinc Aqualinc Gain Canterbury Regional Council Approval Page 1 Bob Cathcart - Private Consultant APPROVED FOR RELEASE BY: Stephen McNally National Technical Director - Productive Water - Partner Opus International Consultants Date: 18th December 2015 Northland Strategic Irrigation Infrastructure Study i Contents Executive Summary ................................................................................................... 1 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 4 1.1 Background ....................................................................................................................... 4 1.2 Location and landuse ........................................................................................................ 4 1.3 Physical characteristics ..................................................................................................... 6 1.4 Climate and seasonal variability ....................................................................................... 7 1.5 Community stakeholder profile ........................................................................................ 7 2 Current situation of irrigation in Northland ...................................................... 8 2.1 Estimation of irrigated areas ............................................................................................ 8 2.2 Current irrigation systems ................................................................................................ 9 2.3 Existing large irrigation schemes .................................................................................... 12 2.4 Historic water management initiatives and proposals ................................................... 19 2.5 Other water management considerations ....................................................................... 24 2.6 Council Long Term Plans (LTP’s) ................................................................................... 27 2.7 Stakeholder engagement responses ................................................................................ 27 3 Demand analysis .............................................................................................. 29 3.1 Irrigation potential .......................................................................................................... 29 3.2 Topography ..................................................................................................................... 29 3.3 Climate ............................................................................................................................30 3.4 Land capability ................................................................................................................ 33 3.5 Selected irrigable areas ................................................................................................... 34 3.6 Potential command areas for further consideration ....................................................... 36 3.7 Potential challenges and limitations ...............................................................................40 4 Water demand assessment ............................................................................... 45 4.1 Consented water takes .................................................................................................... 46 4.2 Impact of climate change ................................................................................................ 48 4.3 Irrigation demand ........................................................................................................... 49 4.4 Industrial demand........................................................................................................... 52 4.5 Other demands ................................................................................................................ 57 5 Availability of water ......................................................................................... 58 5.1 Run-of-stream ................................................................................................................. 58 5.2 Groundwater ................................................................................................................... 65 5.3 Reservoirs and harvesting high flows ............................................................................. 67 1-13764.00 | December 2015 Opus International Consultants Ltd Northland Strategic Irrigation Infrastructure Study ii 6 Water balance .................................................................................................. 70 6.1 Reliability of irrigation water .......................................................................................... 70 6.2 Command area water balance ......................................................................................... 71 7 Rationalisation of areas of interest .................................................................. 78 7.1 Long list ........................................................................................................................... 78 7.2 Short list (clustering) ...................................................................................................... 79 7.3 Excluded areas of demand ............................................................................................. 80 8 Economic Impact of Irrigation ......................................................................... 81 8.1 Current regional land use and irrigation ........................................................................ 81 8.2 Projected additional Northland irrigated land use ......................................................... 82 8.3 Benefits of Northland irrigation in-orchard and on-farm .............................................. 85 8.4 Northland economic impacts from irrigation ................................................................. 87 8.5 Increased land use margins in Northland clusters ......................................................... 89 8.6 Employment generated by irrigation in clusters ............................................................ 89 8.7 Realising development of irrigable land .........................................................................90 8.8 Specific impacts of expanding current irrigation schemes ............................................. 91 9 Multi-criteria analysis ...................................................................................... 92 9.1 Weighting the criteria ..................................................................................................... 92 9.2 Questioning ..................................................................................................................... 93 9.3 MCA process ................................................................................................................... 95 9.4 MCA Results .................................................................................................................... 95 10 Discussion .......................................................................................................