Wicklow County Council, working with Wicklow Uplands Council, the East Wicklow River\u2019s Trust and LAWPRO, are leading on implementing the project.<\/p>\n
Spongeworks is an EU Horizon project tackling the growing risk of floods or drought across Europe which are being intensified by climate change. It aims to address flooding, drought and biodiversity decline by using techniques to protect and enhance the soils capacity to soak up rainfall like a sponge and manage its movement through the catchment landscape from uplands to lowlands and urban centres.<\/p>\n
Working with local stakeholders and landowners, the aim of the project is to explore which type of measures will be best suited to our local landscape. It will develop a strategy that will deliver nature-based solutions, incorporating co-benefits for water management, water quality, climate adaptation and biodiversity. Through the project a coordinated approach to implementation and opportunities for future funding of sponge measures will be developed.<\/p>\n
All interested parties, members of the community and landowners are invited to the project launch, taking place in Aughrim on Tuesday, January 27, at 7pm, in the Tidy Towns Pavilion Centre.<\/p>\n
It will be an opportunity to learn about the project and chat with the team about what measures might help us, working with nature, to restore the sponge capacity of our soils and manage water in a way that build climate resilience and maintains the productivity of our lands, while protecting nature.<\/p>\n
Dr Mary Bourke, a lecturer in geography from Trinity College will share her experience from working on the Slow Waters Project which explored nature-based solutions for water quality and quantity on agricultural catchments. Jim Callery, Climate Action Officer, with Wicklow County Council will talk about the wider Spongeworks project and why the Aughrim River catchment was chosen as a study area.<\/p>\n
Welcoming Wicklow\u2019s involvement in the project, Cathaoirleach of Wicklow County Council, Cllr Melanie Corrigan stated: \u201cIt is an opportunity to bring the community together to address how we manage water in our landscape to ensure we can reduce flood risk, avoid drought and build resilience of our natural systems to handle the changes that our climate is bringing. Both the rural and urban community on the Aughrim River and its tributaries can play a role in protecting our water.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spongeworks is a different way of looking at water management, as it includes the whole river catchment from source, through different rural land uses and urban centres. All have roles to play and all can benefit from the better care we give to our river.<\/p>\n
Chief Executive of Wicklow County Council, Emer O\u2019Gorman said, \u201cThe EU Spongeworks project is an opportunity to work with our European partners on developing climate resilience through nature based solutions. The Aughrim River is an ideal study area for County Wicklow, offering in one smaller catchment a variety of different Wicklow landscapes including uplands, rural farming landscapes and an urban centre. We are delighted that key stakeholders including Wicklow Uplands Council, the East Wicklow Rivers Trust, LAWPRO and Teagasc are working with us to deliver this project.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wicklow County Council, working with Wicklow Uplands Council, the East Wicklow River\u2019s Trust and LAWPRO, are leading on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,4657,82],"class_list":["post-251252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-myles-buchanan","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}