DAERA/PEACEPLUS: Water Quality & Catchment Management

Overview

Investment Area 5.3 - Catchment Management Programme

Background

Cross-border catchments, which include freshwater bodies in cross-border river basins, have the scope to act as sites to facilitate more sustainable solutions to water quality improvement.
There is now a better understanding of the role of nature-based solutions and sustainable catchment management and how these should be incorporated as part of the restorative measures. The transboundary nature of waterbodies across the Programme Area presents an opportunity for strategic collaboration. The proposed investment will facilitate the development and implementation of cross-border best practice and technical expertise to improve water quality across the Programme Area.

Objective of this call

This objective will enable a cross-border, collaborative approach to management and improvement of water quality to address the requirements of the Water Framework Directive in selected cross-border catchments located within the Programme Area. It will promote sustainable water management.

It will result in the development and management of cross-border water quality as well as catchment management programmes, designed to enable freshwater bodies in cross-border river basins to achieve goo or high status; and an increased percentage of shared waters in the Programme Area with good or high status.

An indicative budget allocation has been set at €21m in this call.

Anticipated Benefits

Cross-border catchments, which include freshwater bodies in cross-border river basins, have the scope to act as sites to facilitate more sustainable solutions to water quality improvement. There is now a better understanding of the role of nature-based solutions and sustainable catchment management and how these should be incorporated as part of the restorative measures. The transboundary nature of waterbodies across the Programme Area presents an opportunity for strategic collaboration. The proposed investment will facilitate the development and implementation of cross-border best practice and technical expertise to improve water quality across the Programme Area.

It will result in the following benefits:

• Quantifiable improvements in water quality and quantity;
• A decrease in soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP)/ nitrate/ nutrient concentration in selected water bodies across the Programme Area;
• An improved understanding and knowledge of nutrient management and biodiversity through cross-border collaboration and the development of new solutions;
• Financial savings within the Programme Area agricultural sector;
• Decreased public expenditure arising from: water treatment costs for public water supply utility; improvement of public health for rural private water supplies; and catchment-based flood-relief/alleviation measures;
• Improvement to designated sites through implementation of necessary conservation measures which may include nutrient management;
• A reduction in flooding risks within areas identified as vulnerable;
• The development of nature-based solutions for catchment management (including a contribution to the conservation of boglands) and spatially targeted buffers
• The development of suitable buffer strips to protect river basins (and incumbent ecosystems) from the threat of agricultural pollutants
• Better public engagement with nature facilitated through the development of nature recovery networks.
• Increased resilience of catchments against potential future impacts of climate change; and
• Protecting the contribution that high status water bodies make to biodiversity, high natural capital values, and high ecosystem services benefitting public health and wellbeing.

Anticipated Actions

Anticipated actions include joint strategies and nature-based solutions, and will focus on cross-border catchments. The types of actions relating to cross-border catchments include the development of operational strategies dealing with transboundary movements of nutrients and evidence-based approaches to tracking systems to map nutrient flow and optimisation of sustainable nutrient use. It will also support pilot project(s) or innovative nature-based solutions to restore catchments, reduce runoff and nutrient loss and generate co-benefits relating to pesticide losses.

These actions should be supported by a suite of initiatives to achieve sustained long-term behavioural change; build capacity and engagement of local landowners and community members and to achieve a legacy of enhanced community-focused environmental learning resources.

They anticipate funding circa 4 projects in this investment area.

Eligibility

Who is eligible to apply

• National, regional and local authorities;
• Regional and local development agencies, chambers of commerce;
• Universities, colleges, higher education, research institutions;
• Non-governmental organisations (NGOs);
• Sectoral agencies and business support organisations;
• Voluntary sector organisations;
• Other relevant public-like organisations contributing to the development of the Programme Area;
• Private sector – specifically micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large companies.

Please note the above is not an exhaustive list, other bodies may be considered eligible.

Programme Area

The Programme Area for the PEACEPLUS Programme is:

• Northern Ireland;
• The border counties of Ireland (Counties Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Louth, Monaghan and Sligo).

This is the core Programme Area. The Programme, however, has flexible geography beyond its administrative borders called a Functional Area. This allows for organisations and institutions not based in the core Programme Area to get involved in projects by linking with partners within the core area. The benefits of such collaborations must be significant for the core Programme Area.