Rotorua, New Zealand: 18 - 23 September 2011

Workshops

The four workshops concurrently scheduled for Thursday, 22 September are:

1. Development of report cards for state-of-the-environment reporting
2. Water quality trading
3. Bringing Together Science and Policy to Protect and Enhance Wetland Ecosystem Services in Agricultural Landscapes. Symposium sponsored by the OECD Co-operative Research Programme
4. The mining industries contribution and solutions to diffuse pollution

The three workshops concurrently scheduled for Friday, 23 September are:

5. Impact of Agricultural intensification on efforts to mitigate diffuse pollution
6. Methods for predicting trophic state of lakes from nutrient load
7. Stormwater from industrial estates

Development of report cards for state-of-the-environment reporting

The workshop will first provide an overview on developing traditional report cards for ecosystem health through defining society values, objectives, indicators, reference states, monitoring programs, and reporting. It will then consider critical issues around:

• Extending report cards beyond ecosystem health •Integrating over the catchment or basin level; the problem of spatial heterogeneity
• Using report cards to guide restoration of waterways affected by diffuse source pollution
• The importance of defining the key society values which underpin the choice of report card framework and indicators
• Dealing with the issue of long response times to management intervention (i.e., long term improvements to indicators)
• Incorporating community and cultural aspirations and wellbeing in report cards

Water quality trading

What types of point-source and/or non-point source permitting or licensing systems (e.g., watershed permitting) have proven the most ideal for accommodating experimentation with water quality trading?
How can dischargers buy and sell what are in essence provisional discharge ‘rights’ (and are in practice shares of a water body’s capacity to assimilate wastes) in legal environments in which statutory law makes it clear ownership of the water body, and presumably all of its associated uses, lies exclusively with the public at large?
In cases in which a seller of water quality credits (e.g., a farmer that receives a sum of money for implementing a best management practice not already required under regulations) fails to deliver on the pollution control commitment he has made pursuant to a trade with a credit buyer (e.g., a municipality that pays a sum of money to forego an expensive wastewater treatment plant upgrade being proposed by a pollution control authority as a marginal regulatory requirement), to which party will fines be issued by administrative authorities? And if inherent contraventions of ambient water quality standards result in damage, nuisance, trespass, etc. to other water users, which party is liable in civil courts?
To what extent should potential cost savings that arise from cost-effective reallocations of pollution control responsibilities be used to cover the transactions costs (e.g., additional monitoring and modelling, cost-effectiveness analysis, brokering, etc.) associated with experimenting with water quality trading. To what extent should trading ratios be applied to account for differences in how respective discharges affect water-quality-limited stream segments? Should additional margins of safety to account for uncertainty in modelling predictions be built into water quality trading ratios?

Bringing Together Science and Policy to Protect and Enhance Wetland Ecosystem Services in Agricultural Landscapes. Symposium sponsored by the OECD Co-operative Research Programme

Click here to view programme

The mining industries contribution and solutions to diffuse pollution

What impact originating from mines are diffuse? How can these be quantified and reduced throughout the life of mine especially in Closure? Does mining contribute to diffuse pollution?

Mining has resulted in the pollution of surface and ground water since Roman times. Internationally it has become recognised that diffuse source water pollution from mining activities severely affects the water quality especially with regards to salinity, acidification and metal loading.

This workshop will present some international and local case studies on the quantification, impacts, monitoring tools and management options related to the diffuse pollution contribution from the mining industry.

• Dr Ralph Heath: (Golder Associates Africa). How mining contributes to diffuse pollution in Africa.
  South Africa is facing major problems with regard to the management and treatment of contaminated mine water.
  This presentation will look at the impacts of diffuse pollution from the mining in Africa and indicate our understanding of the threat that the mining industry poses to receiving water quality (surface and groundwater). Furthermore recommendations will be made as how to increase our understanding of the mining industries contribution to diffuse pollution and some recommended management measures.
• JE Cavanagh: Predicting and Managing Water Quality Impacts of Mining on Streams in New Zealand
• Ian Boothroyd: (Golder Assoc. NZ) How biological monitoring can be used to determine impacts of mining companies.
• Discussion on how to quantify diffuse pollution from the mining industry, predictive tools, monitoring, regulations, management issues etc.

Impact of Agricultural intensification on efforts to mitigate diffuse pollution

The workshop will address focus topical areas for mitigating diffuse pollution from agriculture, viz.:

In Europe, the introduction of Directive 2000/60/EC, the Water Framework Directive (WFD), in 2000 heralded a paradigm shift in water management for Member States, with a move away from water quality assessment based on chemical parameters towards whole ecosystem assessment measured by ecological parameters, and management based on hydro-geographical rather than political boundaries. The workshop will different approaches by EU Member States to monitoring programmes, including types of measurements, cost effectiveness, indicator parameters, role of modelling, issues of scale and the role of land-based monitoring.

Climatic shifts show increases in precipitation, and particularly increased frequency of high intensity events. Agricultural production systems in the US are responding to the demand for biofuel production, particularly corn-grain ethanol, shifting cropping systems towards increased maize production. The result is loss of diversity in cropping patterns and increased use of fertilizer nitrogen, with increased leaching losses of nitrate-N. Farmers are responding through longer-season varieties and altered timing of N fertilization – it is a transition that is beginning, especially in terms of N timing, but certainly is not completed.

Some industries in New Zealand have developed codes of practice for nutrient and farm management to reduce nutrient losses and water contamination, are these voluntary industry measures sufficient to achieve the environmental goals, or are regulatory measures essential?
Mitigation technologies to reduce nutrient losses often have added costs, which is often an obstacle for uptake, what measures are necessary to encourage environmental best practices? Should there be incentives for environmental best practices?

Methods for predicting trophic state of lakes from nutrient load

Questions to be addressed include:

1. What models are applicable for linking nutrient load to trophic state?
2. What models are not applicable?
3. What certainty can managers have (in the best models)?
4. What are the minimum data requirements for calibrating and validating a model?
5. What temporal and spatial scales are necessary for measuring (estimating?) nutrient load with prescribed level of confidence?
6. Is TP and TN sufficient (for nutrient loads)?  If not why not?
7. Are their simple methods (e.g. nomographs) for estimating a lakes response (trophic state to trophic state) to mitigation measures (decreasing nutrient load)? 
8.How important is 'closure' of a nutrient budget e.g. what proportion of the inflows for a nutrient budget can be unmeasured (estimated) for the budget to still be of value.?
9. How can we effectively 'bridge the gap' between farm systems  modelling (e.g. Udder/Overseer) and the needs of lake managers (i.e what error in leaching/transport loss estimates is acceptable limnologically?)
10. Can we improve the effectiveness of models through in-lake monitoring?
11.What is the future of in-situ in-lake monitoring?

Stormwater from industrial estates

Details to follow soon