In the past 10 years more than $250 million had been spent to improve the health of our region's freshwater.
"Trends from January 2006 to December 2015 show efforts being made throughout the region by many landowners, organisations, iwi and councils are making a marked improvement in water quality throughout the region.
"This has been done through regulatory and non-regulatory means such as the Sustainable Land Use Initiative, the Manawatu River Leaders' Accord and the Horowhenua Lake Accord."
Dr Roygard said many of these initiatives to improve water quality were the result of central-government funding.
"In a previous funding round, our region received $5.2m from the government's Fresh Start for Freshwater Clean-Up Fund which contributed to an overall $46m commitment for projects to improve the state of the Manawatu catchment through the Manawatu River Leaders' Accord," he said.
"Planting of 110,900 native plants along waterways, erecting 474km of extra stream fencing, completing 98 environmental farm plans, 12 fish passage enhancements, 19 community-led projects and the upgrade of six wastewater treatment plants have contributed to moving 600km of the Manawatu catchment into a more swimmable category."
The Manawatu River source in Norsewood was central to the start of waterway fencing and riparian planting in 2013 and of the 16 sites in the Manawatu catchment which have 10 years of data, more than 31 per cent show improving trends for E. coli and no sites show a decline.
"Of the 16 sites, 75 per cent also show improvement for total oxidised nitrogen and half show improvement for dissolved reactive phosphorus," Dr Roygard said.
"Stock exclusion is also a key part of water-quality improvement and a considerable amount has been done on a voluntary basis in the region.
"The ministers' announcement for further regulations around stock exclusion add to the regulatory and non-regulatory initiatives Horizons already has in place.
"Where our One Plan has less regulation, for example around sheep and beef, the new national regulations will come into effect.
"The NPS amendments include new requirements to measure and monitor macroinvertebrates.
"This is already standard practice for Horizons, we currently monitor around 73 sites per year.
"Recognising the importance of water quality at our swim spots and keeping people being well informed about when they are suitable for swimming, we have expanded our monitoring programme to monitor the health of more than 80 swim spots every week over summer.
"This information is put on to our website, and is also available on Land, Air, Water, Aotearoa's (LAWA) 'Can I swim here?' website feature," Dr Roygard said.
The websites used the national guidelines traffic-light system to report suitability for swimming at sites throughout the region.
That system was also incorporated into signage at the swim spots and in council reports.
"Horizons works closely with the district health board, who have the final say about the suitability of swimming at our monitored sites."
