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Managing the environmental effects arising from intensive agriculture has become a key issue in obtaining permission to abstract water for irrigation in New Zealand. Hunter Downs Irrigation (HDI) is a proposed irrigation scheme that would divert approximately 20 m/s of flow from the Waitaki River to 40,000 hectares of lands in Canterbury, New Zealand. In addition to carrying out extensive assessments of the potential environmental effects of the proposed scheme, the scheme proponents also needed to demonstrate how they would be able to implement and maintain ongoing environmental management of irrigated agriculture. Many of the effects arising from the new development are not readily quantifiable in advance, as they depend on the particular mix of land uses that will be established once the scheme is commissioned. These may also change over time as they will depend not only on the biophysical environment (soils, topography, climate etc.) but also on market drivers and other economic signals. As the area supplied by this scheme is suitable for a range of land uses, the challenge was to provide sufficient certainty to regulatory agencies and to the public that adverse environmental effects generated by the irrigation scheme will be minimised and that poor practices can either be avoided or can be identified and remedied. At the same time farmers needed to have sufficient flexibility to develop a wide range of agricultural enterprises. To achieve this an environmental management system was developed that requires each farmer to develop and implement an environmental farm management plan that is linked to a rigorous audit and compliance regime, as well as a continuous improvement process, so that the farmers maintain up to date practices. By maintaining best practices on farm it is assumed that the environmental effects generated by the scheme are the lowest possible for an irrigated agricultural system.

Using individual farm management plans to manage land use change effects associated with new irrigation development, Canterbury, New Zealand