Catchment News

Conference: Catchment science and management – the role of geoscience and groundwater

The 41st Annual IAH Irish Group Groundwater Conference Catchment Science and Management – The Role of Geoscience and Groundwater will be held on Zoom over two half-days on Monday 26 and Tuesday 27 April 2021.

Day 1 will run from 13:30 to 17:30 and Day 2 from 09:30 to 13:30. 

Registration is free online through Eventbrite. Bound copies of the conference proceedings can be ordered in advance for €35 through Eventbrite when you register. The proceedings will also be available on the day as a pdf on the IAH Ireland website, https://www.iah-ireland.org/

There will be a total of 14 presentations over two half-days, from consultants, academics and state agencies, as well as an Early Careers Session.

On our first day, session one, Catchments and the Environment, will take a broader perspective and includes talks on the Framework for Integrated Land and Landscape Management developed by An Fóram Uisce (Gretta McCarron, An Fóram Uisce), Nature-based Catchment Management (Patrick Morrissey, EPA) and a karstic lake habitat (Cilian Roden, Consultant).

Session two, Investigating and Assessing Catchment Water Quality, consists of presentations on the 3rd WFD Cycle River Basin Management Plan (Marie Archbold, EPA), the Agricultural Catchments Programme (Per-Erik Mellander, Teagasc), local catchment assessment (Eoin McAleer, LAWPRO), and the CatchmentCARE Project (Caoimhe Hickey, GSI).

Half-day number two kicks off with a session on Insights on Water Flow in Catchments, with talks on the role of groundwater in catchment functioning (Alan McDonald, BGS), blanket bogs and streamflow (Ray Flynn, QUB), and characterising flows in a western karst terrain (Suzanne Tynan, Consultant).

The final session is titled Managing Drinking Water with a Catchment Based Approach, and the speakers will present on the recast Drinking Water Directive (Lorraine Gaston, Irish Water), mitigation actions using the pollutant transfer continuum (Patrick McCabe, NFGWS), catchment modelling of orthophosphate leakage from water mains (Gerry Baker, Arup) and catchment management in a karst environment (Coran Kelly, Tobin).

Learn more:

Tickets are available on Eventbrite. You will receive a link to join the conference by email a few days before the event.

Further details are available on the IAH website.

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https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/41st-annual-iah-irish-group-online-conference-tickets-142144346567

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.

LAWCO

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.

EPA

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.

DECLG

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.