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Making the most of our waters – the LEADER approach and future funding opportunities

A workshop by the Local Authority Waters and Communities Office, WaterLIFE & IRD Duhallow was held on Monday 16th and Tuesday 17th May 2016 at IRD Duhallow, James O’Keefe Institute, Newmarket, Co. Cork.

This workshop explored the potential role of Rural Development Companies and Urban Partnerships in water management, and how we can work together to manage our community water resources into the future. The new LEADER programme offers exciting opportunities for the development of local economies in both the rural and urban environments, underpinned by good management of water and its related biodiversity.

How to do this in an effective manner is a challenge for each community group as this is an evolving area which requires specialist expertise.

Local field trip to look at results of Duhallow LIFE project

The workshop included knowledge exchange via the LIFE+ WaterLIFE project (waterlife.org.uk) and the Catchment Based Approach (www. catchmentbasedapproach.org) two closely aligned initiatives to drive collaborative water management in the UK. By looking at the UK and Irish experience in community based water management, the workshop took a practical look at how to develop water based projects, considering the issues to watch out for and how community groups can maximize the water potential of their local areas.

Improved water quality and habitats underpin water based ecotourism and communities also depend on these for a good quality of life. The workshop contained a mixture of practical examples and highlighted potential roadblocks to good projects, ideas for project development were illustrated and how these fit into the bigger of picture of better water management.

The overall objective was to explore and demonstrate ways in which Rural Development Companies can become more that just funders by taking proactive roles in strategic planning, animation of and coordinators of stakeholders with an interest in sustainable water management in Ireland. In addition Rural Development Companies and Partnerships are well positioned to leverage other schemes (Rural Social Scheme/ Tús) to carry out large scale programmes such as invasive species control. This two day event showcased how this can be done based on proven and practical approaches from both Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Article courtesy of the Local Authority Waters and Communities Office and IRD Duhallow.

Making the most of our waters - workshop agenda — Making the most of our waters – workshop agenda

About author

EPA Catchments Unit

Administrator

The EPA Catchments Unit is based in Dublin, and the team is involved with catchment science, chemistry, ecology, hydromorphology, modelling, Geographic Information Systems and planning. We work with the wider EPA, all of our local authorities, the Local Authority Waters and Communities Office, the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, and other public bodies and Departments to ensure we have the best available data and information about our catchments.

Who is involved?
Quite simply, everyone in Ireland has a role to play. This can be from something as simple as making sure you don’t pollute your local stream, or a local community working together to establish a Rivers Trust to enhance the rivers and lakes in their area, to a Government Department or Agency helping a Minister implement a new policy to help protect and enhance all our water bodies.

This website has been developed and is maintained by the Environmental Protection Agency, and is a collaboration between the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Local Authority Waters Programme.

Local Authority Waters Programme

The Local Authority Waters Programme coordinates the efforts of local authorities and other public bodies in the implementation of the River Basin Management Plan, and supports local community and stakeholder involvement in managing our natural waters, for everyone’s benefit.

Environmental Protection Agency

The EPA is responsible for coordinating the monitoring, assessment and reporting on the status of our 4,842 water bodies, looking at trends and changes, determining which waterbodies are at risk and what could be causing this, and drafting environmental objectives for each.

Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage

The Department is responsible for making sure that the right policies, regulations and resources are in place to implement the Water Framework Directive, and developing a River Basin Management Plan and Programme of Measures to protect and restore our waters.