Catchment Science 2023
Over 200 scientists, advisors, farmers and representatives from the agri industry and the public sector are gathered in Wexford this week to hear the latest on water catchment science.
Catchment Science 2023 is the fourth international conference hosted by the Agricultural Catchments Programme, funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. The event is taking place from 7th to 9th November.
Colm Markey, Fine Gael MEP, said that this conference is about the excellence of water catchments, and what we can do to improve water quality. There has been water sampling every ten minutes in six catchments over 15 years, so there is an incredible amount of data and an incredible amount of learnings from that data. This conference is sharing best practice here in Ireland with best practice from elsewhere in Europe.
Teagasc Director Professor Frank O’ Mara said; “Among the key findings from the Agricultural Catchment Programme were that the underlying soil type and geology can override the effect of Nutrient source pressures. There was no clear link between stream N and P concentrations and nutrient loading at small catchment scale. Targeted and efficient mitigation measures are required.”
Speaking at the event, Bridget Lynch, Teagasc senior researcher with the Agricultural Catchments Programme said; “We have had a tremendous response to our call for abstracts across a number of themes related to Catchment Science with over 100 papers from national and international scientists. Catchment Science 2023 is a blend of oral presentations, panel discussions, field trips, workshops and poster sessions. We have the full spectrum of actors working on water quality and gaseous emissions with scientists, policy makers, agri industry, local authorities, county councils and other groups in attendance.”
The book of Scientific Abstracts for the 4th international Catchment Science conference can be viewed here; https://www.teagasc.ie/media/website/environment/climate-change/water-quality/acp/Abstracts_book.pdf
The conference covered 11 themes:
- Soil fertility, nutrient and carbon management
- Gaseous emissions and carbon sequestration
- Land to water contaminant loss
- Long-term, in-situ monitoring and catchment modelling of water quality and greenhouse gases
- Climate induced changes
- Running a ‘living lab’ in agricultural settings
- Aquatic ecology: impacts of hydro morphology and contaminant stressors
- Approaches for mitigation strategies
- Socio-economy: attitudes, perceptions and impacts of policy change
- Knowledge exchange and Stakeholder engagement
- Governance and policy implementation
More information available here https://teagascacp.clr.events/event/133681:catchment-science-2023