How to get involved

Home How to get involved

There are many ways to get involved in looking after your community’s catchment.

You can sign up for our quarterly Catchments Newsletter using the form below, and if you let us know what county you are in, we can contact you with relevant information about anything new that starts in your area.

The Waters and Communities Office

The Waters and Communities office partners with local communities across Ireland to provide advice and support on water based initiatives. Some examples include:

Invasive species removal and control
Fish passage improvement
Fish spawning enhancement
Riverbank improvement works/halting erosion
In stream works – stream crossings
Community engagement
Citizens monitoring their local river – Nature detectives
Recreation of wildlife habitats
“Solution to pollution” problems
Livestock management – where appropriate
River Signage
Tidy Towns (Tidy Rivers)

Our Community Water Officers are based across the County and will work with local authorities, stakeholders, interest groups, Local Community Development Committees (LCDCs), Public Participation Networks (PPNs), Local Development Companies etc. to promote community engagement and to mobilise community action around water management.

You can get in touch with the office by emailing info@lawco.ie or phone 0761 06 5262.

www.watersandcommunities.ie

Things you can do:

Sign up for our quarterly Catchments Newsletter using the form below
Making sure your primary or secondary school is involved in the Green Schools programme
Seeing if your local Tidy Town is interested in taking part in the “Value Water Award”
Organising an annual spring clean of your area
If you are near the sea, getting involved with Clean Coasts
Checking Volunteer Ireland to see if there are any relevant groups in your area
Checking ChangeX.org to see if there are social innovations you’d like to copy for your area, or to join an existing group helping change things in your community
Setting up a locally-led agri environment scheme – you can read a how-to guide on our blog
Setting up a Rivers Trust for your area – see blog by Mark Horton

Get involved – sign up for occasional updates and our quarterly Catchments Newsletter

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 waterbodies.

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

Local Authority Waters and Communities Office

The Waters and Communities Office has been established to carry out public consultation and engagement, and to coordinate the activities of all 31 local authorities in areas connected with the Water Framework Directive.

Environmental Protection Agency

The EPA is responsible for coordinating the monitoring, assessment and reporting on the status of our 4829 waterbodies, looking at trends and changes and determining which waterbodies are at risk and what could be causing this, and drafting environmental objectives and measures for each.

Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government

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 that will be implemented after public consultation, and sign off by the Minister.