Catchment News

A ‘climate-check’ has been completed of the River Basin Management Plan. The climate-check was achieved by:

• Assessing risk, due to climate change, of not achieving good water status or no-deterioration in water status as a consequence of the identified pressures, such as abstraction.
• Integrating the impacts of climate change when identifying and appraising the Programme of Measures and proposing appropriate adaptation of actions
  where necessary.
• looking for opportunities in the monitoring programme to improve our
  understanding of climate change trends.
• Considerable effort is underway to improve our understanding of present changes in climate and of likely changes in the future. Notwithstanding the high levels of uncertainty involved, predictions have been made that allow broad ranges of impacts to be considered. Changes in the next twenty to forty years are more
  readily identified than longer-term changes that depend on many social and political assumptions.

Current predictions for Ireland indicate that climate issues may be relatively significant for measures related to:

• protected areas and high-status sites,
• abstractions, and
• physical modifications to river and marine morphology.

Considerations also arise for point-source discharges and diffuse landuse pressures such as agriculture, forestry and unsewered systems. Sensitivity for dangerous substances pressure is likely to be low.

The study identified that the Programme of Measures can be flexible and adaptable to potential future climate change, in terms of temperature, storm surge, floods and droughts. In fact, many contribute to national adaptation strategies. The analysis highlights the advantages of an integrated catchment-based approach to water management. It contributes to adaptation strategy and strengthens future science/policy link on climate change and water by identifying research needs, communicating them to the research community and making best use of available research results.