EIP

Duhallow Farming for Blue Dot Catchments Projects

The Duhallow Farming for Blue Dot Catchments EIP Project is a €1.47 million Department of Agriculture, Food & the Marine funded results based AgriE n v i r o n m e n t a l programme aimed at rewarding farmers for the protection, enhancement and restoration of waterbodies in the Allow River Catchment. The catchment has several high status objectives waterbodies located in the Blackwater River Special Area of Conservation. This year saw the project complete year two of the proposed five-year project term and payments issued to project participants for the first time. 82 applicants were successful with entry into the project. 68 participants had farm surveys conducted from June – August 2020 to verify measures.

Project Baseline Surveying

Baseline surveys to map habitats and identify measures were conducted on 82 land holdings this year. The hydrology and farm land drains and connectivity to watercourses were also mapped to identify and locate nutrient flow pathways, natural seepage areas and critical source areas. Four additional surveys including a habitat survey and measure verification, a biodiversity survey of each participant farm to establish the environmental quality of riverbank vegetation structure and whether the riparian zone was biotic or abiotic, a plant identification survey which listed positive indicator species for riparian zones and finally a farm wide survey was conducted to record habitats on each participating land holding. Habitats of interest for a results based payment based on scorecards were recorded. These habitats included species rich grassland, wet grassland, semi-natural grassland, alluvial or native woodland, vegetated drain buffers, riparian scrub, wetlands/ponds, instream woody habitat and river bank riparian zones. Land drains and their connectivity to qualifying rivers in the EIP project area were mapped for the entire holding for each participant that submitted an Expression of Interest form to the project. The flow pathway, vegetation structure and adjacent land use type was recorded.

Results Based Payments

Following baseline surveys results based payments of €80,565 were issued to 68 project participants in 2020.

Cork Environmental Forum Sustainable Agriculture Award

Our project was selected by Cork Environmental Forum for the Sustainable Agriculture Award. An online event took place in December to celebrate the achievement. On the night of the event, speeches from members of IRD Duhallow were well received by the distinguished audience. Dónal Daly, former head of A pond installed on a project farm showing natural revegetation shortly after installation, and the EPA, spoke about the excellent one year after installation innovations demonstrated by participating farmers and praised the project for tackling the biodiversity crisis and reducing greenhouse gas emissions as well as improving water quality.

Stakeholder & Industry Collaborations

We have collaborated with the Local Authority Waters Programme through the community water fund on a number of projects with the aim of preventing silt from entering waterbodies in the project area and wider catchment. In November 2020 the project team began working on a LAWPROfunded novel silt trapping trial. T h e goal of the trial was to test the suitability of a bespoke engineered silt trap as a silt trapping mechanism capable of reducing the sediment load entering watercourses following flood events. The EIP project in collaboration with the Local Authority Waters Programme community fund carried on a template farm roadway upgrade on a select EIP participant farm. The farm roadway was identified as a nutrient loss pathway directly to the River Dalua as a result the farm road was altered and redirected left for a fifty metre section to break the nutrient pathway

Owentaraglin EIP

Earlier in 2021 the government announced an open call for new EIP-Agri funded projects. Originally €1.25 million in funding had been allocated but after receiving a huge amount of interest this was upgraded to €3 million. IRD Duhallow applied for funding to add the Owentaraglin River to our existing project for a period of one year. Their application was approved and we were awarded €198,870, making this the second biggest project from the 24 successful projects that received funding under the call. The project will welcome farmers on the Owentaraglin into the project from January 2021, placing emphasis on green infrastructure measures such as pond construction and farm roadway upgrades.

Project Scientist Mike O’ Connor conducting a survey on a project farm

A young hawthorn tree planted along the River Allow under the ‘Riparian Woodland Establishment’ project measure Members of staff, Mike O’ Connor, Project Scientist, Maura Walsh, CEO, Michael Morrissey, Farm Advisors with Board Member James O’ Keeffe accepting the Sustainable Agriculture category award from Cork Environmental Forum

A farm roadway upgraded by the project to prevent runoff from a farmyard to the River Dalua

The project team use macroinvertebrate ‘indicators ’ to determine the biological water quality of project rivers