Manawatū-Whanganui region

The Whanganui is the ancestral river to the Whanganui iwi (Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi), a confederation of three ancestral groups: Hinengākau of the upper river, Tama Ūpoko of the middle reaches and Tūpoho of the lower Whanganui. According to Māori legend, the Whanganui River was named by Hau who set off from Patea following his wife Wairaka along the coast. The first obstacle Hau met was a great river flowing westwards to the setting sun. He sat to consider the best way to cross the water and uttered these thoughts: “Too wide to swim, too deep to wade. I will wait for the tide to turn”. That was how he named the river Whanganui, which literally means the ‘big wait’. Despite many stretches of white water and more than 200 rapids, the Whanganui River has always been an important communication and transport route for both Maori and European settlers. Before Europeans arrived, the Whanganui area was one of the most densely inhabited in New Zealand and colonial settlers later used the area near the river’s mouth as a major trading post. Today, more than half the catchment is covered in native bush or forest and approximately a third of the land area is used for sheep and beef farming. The biggest urban area is the coastal town of Wanganui which has a population of about 42,500. In the upper Whanganui catchment there is no water availble due to the volume of water that is taken for the Tongariro Power Development. There are some smaller consents that were in existance at the time the allocation framework was set and they have been allowed for as part of the core allocation limits. There are some sub-zones in the Manganui o te Ao have their limits defined by the National Water Conservation Order on the river and tributaries. At the time of setting the framework insufficent information was available to set numerical core allocation limits and minimum flows for the rest of the catchment. The water allocation framework manages impacts of the allocation on water body values including consumptive uses by setting minimum flows and allocation limits for each sub-zone.