Water Research
]Ireland’s waters are one of our major natural resources. Plentiful availability of good quality water offers a significant competitive advantage to sectors such as agriculture, industry and tourism.
Water is a resource that must be carefully managed, and improving water quality status is a national priority for Ireland.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a statutory role in coordinating environmental research. EPA Research’s water pillar deals with groundwater, surface water, transitional and coastal water; as well as wastewater, drinking, bathing and shellfish waters.
The overall aim of the water pillar is to support relevant water policy and to protect our water environment, contributing to achieving excellent water quality in Ireland.
The thematic areas under EPA Research’s Water Pillar for 2014-2020 will be:
- Theme 1: Safe Water
- Theme 2: Ecosystem Services and Sustainability
- Theme 3: Innovative Water Technologies
- Theme 4: Understanding, Managing and Conserving our Water Resources
- Theme 5: Emerging and Cross-cutting Issues
It will support the emerging policy & implementation research needs in relation to the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD), as well as marine research considerations to support to the formulation and implementation of policies.
DROPLET – Database of Research Outputs: Projects, Literature and Environmental Technologies
DROPLET (Database of Research Outputs: Projects, Literature and Environmental Technologies) is the EPA’s new, easy-to-use interactive web application for exploring information about projects which have been funded in Ireland on Water Research.
It has been developed by the Environmental Protection Agency but includes projects from many other funders of environmental research in Ireland.
DROPLET is available at: http://erc.epa.ie/droplet/
Check it out and register to submit information on your projects.
DROPLET welcomes your comments on our new interface – please send them to dropletadmin@epa.ie
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.
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.
Environmental Protection Agency
The EPA is responsible for coordinating the monitoring, assessment and reporting on the status of our 4,829 water bodies, looking at trends and changes, determining which waterbodies are at risk and what could be causing this, and drafting environmental objectives and measures for each.
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 that will be implemented after public consultation and sign off by the Minister.