The National Policy Statement for Freshwater 2020 provides local authorities with updated direction on how they should manage freshwater under the Resource Management Act 1991.
National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020
Cross-government water taskforce
National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 (as amended in October 2024)
3 September 2020
National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 (as amended in January 2024)
National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 (as published in August 2020)
National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2014 (as amended in 2017)
Requirements include:
The above list is not exhaustive.
The Freshwater NPS is one of four pieces of national direction for managing New Zealand’s freshwater.
Local authorities are also required to give effect to:
The National Environmental Standards for Freshwater (NES-F) contain provisions to manage the conversion of land to dairy farm land, including conditions on granting consents.
The conversion of land on a farm to dairy farm land is a permitted activity, provided the area of land in dairy farm use is either:
Where these area restrictions cannot be met, a consent is required. A consent can only be granted if the conversion will not result in an increase in contaminant loads in the catchment, freshwater or other receiving environments, compared to concentrations in September 2020.
No change has been made to the self-repeal clause for these provisions which expire on 1 January 2025, although councils now have a three-year extension to December 2027 for notifying their freshwater plans.
The provisions were intended to provide interim intensification controls until regional councils could give full effect to the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 (NPS-FM 2020) in their freshwater plans (originally due to be notified by 31 December 2024), including setting more certain limits and rules through the National Objectives Framework (NOF) process.
Certified copies of documents incorporated by reference into the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 (Freshwater NPS 2020). The documents, or the specified parts of these documents, have the same legal effect as the Freshwater NPS 2020.
The chief executive of the Ministry for the Environment has certified these copies as correct.
The national list of exotic pasture species presents the full list of exotic pasture species in Aotearoa New Zealand that may be considered under clause (e)(ii) of the natural inland wetland definition.
National list of exotic pasture species
This guide presents the New Zealand national pasture exclusion assessment tool. The tool was developed to identify wetlands in areas of pasture used for grazing that do not meet the definition of ‘natural inland wetland’ under the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management and associated regulations.
Pasture exclusion assessment methodology
The Urban Form and Transport Initiative (UFTI) programme business case was prepared by the SmartGrowth Partners to set out an integrated land use and transport programme, and delivery plan for the western Bay of Plenty. The document incorporated by reference to the NPS-FM is the final report, published July 2020.
Urban form and transport initiative
The Wetland Delineation Protocols give a robust method for delineating wetlands based on the United States delineation system. The Freshwater NPS 2020 requires regional councils to have regard to this protocol in cases of uncertainty or dispute about the existence or extent of a natural wetland. This protocol uses three criteria for identifying and delineating wetlands: vegetation, soils, and hydrology. The vegetation and soils components have been adapted to New Zealand conditions and the hydrological component is currently under development.
The New Zealand Threat Classification System provides a tool for assigning a threat status to candidate taxa. The classification system has been developed to apply equally to terrestrial, freshwater and marine biota. In the Freshwater NPS 2020, the manual is used in the definition of “threatened species” for indigenous species of flora or fauna that rely on water bodies for at least part of their life-cycle.
New Zealand threat classification manual
The River Environment Classification (REC) System groups rivers and parts of river networks that share similar characteristics, including physical and biological. Rivers that share the same class can be treated as similar to one another and different to rivers in other classes. The REC system groups rivers according to several environmental factors that strongly influence or cause the rivers’ physical and ecological characteristics (climate, topography, geology and land cover). In the Freshwater NPS 2020 it is used in the definition of “specified rivers and lakes” and the sediment attributes’ classification shown in Appendix 2C.
River Environment Classification System [MfE Data Service]
This user guide defines the composition of the River Environment Classification’s climate, source-of-flow (topography), and geology values that make up the sediment attributes classification system.
New Zealand river environment classification user guide (PDF, 5.1 MB)
This report provides an expert view on best-practice use of the Macroinvertebrate Community Index (MCI) for monitoring and reporting on stream health in New Zealand. It contains advice on appropriate application of the MCI in different stream environments, design of monitoring programmes and data analyses (including trend detection).
A user guide for the Macroinvertebrate Community Index
This report explores the relationship between macroinvertebrate measures (current and new) and ecosystem health, to develop metrics that can be used when making management and restoration decisions about New Zealand streams. Benthic macroinvertebrates (aquatic insects) are a widely used indicator of freshwater ecosystem health as they respond to human pressures, are taxonomically diverse, and easy to sample.
Macroinvertebrate metrics for the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management
This guidance document sets out recommended practice for the design of instream infrastructure to provide for fish passage and to set the foundation for the improvement of fish passage management in New Zealand.
New Zealand fish passage guidelines
This report describes methods used to assess deposited sediment including the SAM2 method that is prescribed in Table 14 of Appendix 2B of the Freshwater NPS 2020.
Guidance for implementing the NPS-FM sediment requirements
This report describes the method used to calculate the ASPM indicator score that is prescribed in Table 15 of Appendix 2B of the Freshwater NPS 2020.
The Freshwater NPS 2020 requires councils to manage periphyton in rivers as a compulsory attribute to achieve the value ecosystem health. This guidance is intended to provide a starting point for defining nutrient concentrations for managing to the periphyton attribute, as required by the Freshwater NPS 2020 clause 3.13: Special provision for attributes affected by nutrients. It should be read together with the Freshwater NPS 2020 and other guidance.
Guidance on look-up tables for setting nutrient targets for periphyton
This technical guidance will help councils with the process set out in Clause 3.13 of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020.
This clause requires regional councils to set appropriate instream concentrations and exceedance criteria for dissolved inorganic nitrogen and dissolved reactive phosphorus to achieve outcomes periphyton, other nutrient attributes, other nutrient affected attributes and for sensitive downstream environments.
Clause 3.13 provides a step-by-step process for councils to follow. The technical guidance explains each of the steps in the process and includes worked examples and case studies.
Most of our guidance has been targeted towards regional councils, although it’s available to everyone. We’ve started looking at how we can provide guidance and support for some of the other groups involved in, and affected by, freshwater planning such as iwi and hapū, the primary sector, district and city councils, and members of communities.
We develop our guidance with assistance from technical experts. We then release the guidance as a draft and invite comment/clarification from users.
The guidance is finalised six months following its release after incorporating initial feedback from users. However as all the Freshwater NPS guides are living documents we welcome comment or clarification suggestions on them at any time.
If you would like to provide feedback on a guide or any other freshwater matter, email us at freshwater@mfe.govt.nz.
These changes do not affect Freshwater Farm Plans, which are continuing to be implemented.