Dr. Elaine McGoff:

I am the natural environment officer with An Taisce. An Taisce is a member of the Sustainable Water Network, SWAN, of which I am vice chair, and I am presenting the collective views of SWAN here today. I have a PhD in freshwater ecology and an advanced diploma in planning and environmental law.

Waterways are very much a product of their landscape. They are the ultimate truth tellers. Whatever is happening in the surrounding landscape will, ultimately, show up in the water quality, and that is what we are seeing in an Irish context. We are in the midst of an ever-worsening water quality crisis, with the EPA increasingly highlighting the deteriorating situation. Half of our rivers and lakes are considered polluted and the EPA has highlighted the alarming declines in our estuaries, two thirds of which are now considered polluted. The top four pressures on our water quality are, in order of magnitude, agriculture, hydromorphology, forestry and urban wastewater, three of which relate directly to how we are managing our land.

In terms of agriculture, one of the biggest issues relates to nutrient pollution from animals, fertilisers and slurry, and nitrogen is a problem especially in the south and south east. "Hydromorphology" is a term with which I assume many members may be less familiar. It relates to changes to the physical structure of a water body, such as channelisation, dredging and land drainage. It can have fundamental impacts on how the water body functions, the species it can support and how healthy it is. Badly sited and managed forestry leads to silt runoff and the acidification of waterways and can have detrimental impacts on one of our most critically threatened species, the freshwater pearl mussel. Forestry has the greatest impact on what are called our high-status sites, that is, the best of the best, our pristine waters. Since the 1980s, we have seen a dramatic decline in these, from more than 900 to about 20 throughout country. Finally, there is urban wastewater treatment, the failures of which should be a national scandal but, for the purposes of today's discussion on land use, I will set that pressure aside.

There can be multiple benefits from well-planned nature restoration, with co-benefits for water quality, biodiversity and climate mitigation, in addition to health and amenity benefits for communities. As outlined in the recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, nature restoration increases resilience to extreme weather events such as floods and droughts, mitigating their impact and providing for greater adaptation, including improved long-term food security.

There can be trade-offs with some climate mitigation measures, however, such as with rapid and widespread afforestation like that modelled in the recent EPA land use synthesis report which, if it is done wrong, could have significant negative impacts on water quality and biodiversity.

This is a complicated picture and it is imperative that we look at it in a holistic way over the medium to long term, not just through the lens of climate benefits or that of short-term economic impact. We need to manage land in an integrated way in order that land use can meet the multiple goals, while recognising the trade-offs and synergies between them and balancing environmental, social and economic outcomes. The only way to achieve that is with the support and involvement of farmers and communities.

Restoration of wetlands, including peatland, will be critical to an effective catchment-based land use strategy for climate mitigation and adaptation, in addition to addressing water pollution and reversing biodiversity loss. Wetland loss has been particularly stark in Ireland. By a recent estimate, Ireland has lost 90% of our wetlands, which is more than any other country in the world. We at SWAN are strongly supportive of a national water and wetland restoration programme and have called on the Government for a prohibition on wetland drainage. We have also called for a review of the Arterial Drainage Act under which the Office of Public Works, OPW, dredges thousands of kilometres of Irish waterways annually, maintaining them in a perennially unnatural state. However, the current draft plan for managing water quality, namely, the draft river basin management plan, lacks ambition and does not reflect the systematic, strategic and landscape scale change required for addressing wetland loss.

Greater efforts are needed to restore freshwater ecosystems and the natural functions of rivers. This is reflected by the nature restoration law objective to restore at least 25,000 km of rivers into free-flowing rivers by 2030 through the removal of barriers and the restoration of floodplains and wetlands. The need for lateral connectivity, in other words, reconnecting rivers with their flood plains, is not reflected in the draft river basin management plan, nor is it an obligation under the water framework directive. It is a critical element for allowing rivers to function naturally, however, and pertinently from a climate adaptation standpoint, it provides flood attenuation and alleviation; it slows the flow. In fact, many countries are actively relocating people outside of their floodplains to facilitate this reconnection for that very reason. Increased flood events are an unavoidable consequence of climate breakdown, so it is in our future whether we choose to mitigate for that or not.

In conclusion, the nature restoration law in combination with the land use review could provide an invaluable lever to address the ongoing failures in land management and critical gaps in policy. We are in the final cycle of the river basin management plan but the current draft plan sorely lacks ambition and will not achieve good status for our water bodies. All life revolves around access to clean water. It is imperative we bear that in mind in terms of our discussions here today. Clearly, fundamental changes are necessary in how we protect waterways and how we manage land has a massive bearing on that. We believe that nature restoration, in particular the restoration of rivers and wetlands, including peatlands and organic soils, is one of the best investments Ireland can make. Given what we are facing, we simply cannot afford to not do it.