EPA - Ireland's Environment 2016 - An Assessment

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Ireland’s Environment – An Assessment 2016 200
Research Responses
Significant investment in agriculture and agri-
environmental research is improving the knowledge
base to underpin environmental protection
and sustainable environmental development of
agriculture.
In recent years both EPA and DAFM have invested heavily
in agricultural and agri-environmental research aimed
at improving the knowledge base to underpin policy
development and application at farm level. There are two
separate but linked strands of research: DAFM’s Stimulus
Programme and the EPA’s Research Programme. Together
these programmes aim to provide the knowledge to
improve production efficiencies whilst also developing our
understanding of the complex physical, chemical, biological,
climatic, hydrological and geomorphological factors that
determine emissions to air, soil and water, their potential
impact on the receiving environment and effective measures
to control them. Bringing these two strands together to inform
policy and transferring this knowledge to the “on the ground”
activities has been highlighted as a challenge and will require
an integrated approach and dedicated effort. The EPA funded
AgImpact project identified the importance of translating the
research knowledge and outcomes into formats that can be
understood by policy maker, adviser, educator, farmer and
consumer stakeholder and emphasised the importance of the
farm advisor in the system (Carton et al., 2016).
Substantial work has been undertaken by the Department
of Agriculture funded Teagasc Agricultural Catchment
Programme (ACP) to assess the impact of the Nitrates
Action Programme measures. An important outcome is
that phosphorus loss from wet soils has been identified
as the most important freshwater quality pressure
emphasising the need to target efforts for reducing
phosphorus loss on wetter soils. This would be consistent
with the approach being taken by the EPA’s risk assessment
approach to characterising the impact of agriculture and
other pressures on the water environment. The ACP has
also identified lag times between changing management
and achieving good water quality in certain geographic
settings resulting in a delay between improved farming
practices and water quality response. While this needs
to be considered it is not a basis for delaying actions
to improve water quality or not implementing effective
additional measures in areas with identified water quality
problems caused by agriculture.
The Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Initiative
for Ireland (AGRI-I)15 is a consortium of researchers,
students and professionals working collaboratively to
improve estimation of GHG emissions and develop
verified strategies to decrease GHG emissions from Irish
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agriculture. AGRI-I was launched in January 2012 and is
one of a number of agri-environment research projects
funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the
Marine. In addition, the EPA research programme (that is
coordinated with AGRI-I) has funded a number of projects
primarily aimed at improving understanding of how to
accurately represent country specific characteristics of
agriculture and land use in Ireland in national reporting of
emissions and removals.
With respect to Climate Change Adaptation, the EPA Research
programme funds regional climate modelling to provide
state of the art projections of climate change and support
dissemination of this knowledge to stakeholders through the
development of the Climate Information Platform.
Recent research has produced country specific emission
factors for nitrous oxide emissions and identified the
potential for significant emissions reductions using
alternative fertiliser formulations which have the added
advantages of being cost neutral while achieving similar or
improved yields (Harty et al ., 2016).
Clearly there will need to be a more tailored approach to
addressing agricultural pressures so that intensification
takes place in appropriate parts of the country. However,
rather than consider agriculture as a pressure, an
alternative perspective is to consider the services it
provides. Schulte et al. (2015) has developed a framework
for considering soil functions called the Functional Land
Management approach. This approach categorises the
varied ecosystem services provided by soils into five
functions: primary production; water purification and
regulation; carbon storage and regulation; provision of a
habitat for biodiversity; and cycling of nutrients. All soils
can perform all of these five functions, but some soils
are better at supplying selective functions. Recognising
these differences in soils, Functional Land Management
is a possible framework for policy-making aimed at
meeting these demands by incentivizing land use and soil
management practices that selectively augment specific
soil functions, where required.