The Selwyn 5 Waters Team

The Selwyn 5 Waters Team worked closely with Selwyn District Council to prepare an Activity Management Plan (AMP) that reflects a sustainable approach to the integrated management of all water related council services (water, wastewater, stormwater, water races and land drainage – the 5 Waters). A Sustainability Framework was developed and applied to the AMP.
This identified Sustainability Principles that were adopted by Council and used to develop levels of service objectives. Management of the 5 Waters Activity is to achieve and maintain the desired levels of service that will thus contribute to sustainability outcomes and can be measured through the use of indicators and performance measures.

Integration of the five water services recognises the interrelationships between them in terms of achieving and maintaining levels of service. This necessitated development of a new tool for the consistent evaluation and prioritisation of all proposed projects with respect to their potential contribution to level of service objectives. The relative importance of various levels of service was weighted according to the outcome of community surveys. Five Communities of Interest were identified to reflect social and environmental diversity within the District. This allows for the 5 Waters Activity to be managed to ensure it meets the differing needs and expectations with respect to water services.

This project has built on established asset management techniques, demonstrating a successful approach to the integrated management of utility services within a sustainability framework.