EPA - Ireland's Environment, An Integrated Assessment - 2020

Chapter 7: Water Quality Water Research Research is helping to inform measures to protect water quality. Since 2016, the EPA has funded 65 new research projects relevant to the Water area; an investment of €15.4 million. These were funded mostly under the Water Pillar of the EPA Research Programme 2014-2020. The topics covered included the evaluation of ecosystem services (ESManage), managing invasive alien species, assessing the extent of barriers on river connectivity (ReConnect), assessing the use of Earth observation to assess lake water quality (Infer), the use of drones to take lake water samples and in situ measurements (DroPLEts), the detection and monitoring of contaminants of emerging concern (IMPACT), assessing the benefits of natural water retention measures in the Irish landscape (SLOWWATERS), guidelines to encourage better operation of septic tanks, use of biophysical models to improve water quality forecasts in lakes (PROGNOS) and along the freshwater-marine continuum (Land2Sea), and finding measures to restore water bodies and water habitats (Macro-Man, CLEAR, SWAMP). During 2020 several new EPA research reports have been published that are relevant to the topics covered in this chapter. They include the research reports below which are available on the EPA research publications webpage: https://www.epa.ie/pubs/reports/research/water/ Research 330: COSAINT: Cattle Exclusion from Watercourses: Environmental and Socio-economic Implications http://www.epa.ie/researchandeducation/ research/researchpublications/researchreports/research330. html Research 312: Incorporation of Ecosystem Services Values in the Integrated Management of Irish Freshwater Resources: ESManage https://www.epa.ie/pubs/reports/ research/water/research312.html This research helps to identify the main pressures damaging the health of the aquatic environment and the solutions needed to address these pressures. Further information is available at http://www.epa.ie/ researchandeducation/research/ and water-related EPA research reports are available at http://www.epa.ie/pubs/ reports/research/water/ Several projects co-funded by the Irish Government and the EU are working with farmers and other local stakeholders to improve water quality in their catchments. A number of EU co-funded European Innovation Partnership (EIP) projects, such as Mulkear EIP, Duncannon EIP and Duhallow EIP, are supporting local farmers to work collaboratively with other stakeholders to develop catchment-sensitive farming practices to improve local water quality. The Duhallow EIP has a focus on protecting and restoring high ecological status waters of the Allow river catchment, while the Duncannon EIP is specifically looking at measures to help restore the blue flag status at Duncannon beach. The Freshwater Pearl Mussel (EIP) project is incentivising farmers to adopt good land management practices to help protect the freshwater pearl mussel. The amount that farmers are paid is linked to the nature quality of their farm. The higher the nature value of their farm, the higher the payment. Further information on these projects can be found on the respective project websites. Although these projects are operating in local catchments on specific issues, the important thing will be to ensure that the lessons learned from them help to inform the selection of measures needed to protect and restore water quality across the country. 185