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Event Description:
An International Conference exploring the latest developments in catchment science and their application to the environmental and economic challenges facing farmers, policy makers and regulators.
Hosted in Wexford, Ireland by the Agricultural Catchments Programme, the conference will run from the 28th - 30th of September with two days of indoor sessions and a choice of of field trips on day three.
Conference Sessions:
1. Detecting change and lag times - patience and policy implementation.
Agri-environmental nutrient measures are required to fit into a DPSIR framework of improving water quality or to provide evidence of at least no change to acceptable water quality status. This session will explore evidence based examples of positive outcomes to policy measures and also confounding influences that require further consideration in policy reviews.
2. Integrated approaches to solving catchment policy questions.
Sustainable intensification of agriculture requires consideration of environmental and economic objectives. This session will highlight monitoring and modelling approaches to achieve these objectives showing if and where trade-offs could occur.
3. Soil analysis and nutrient management – achieving environmental and agronomic goals.
Fertiliser recommendations aimed at reducing the risk of nutrient loss to water while addressing production needs are based on soil analysis and adaptive nutrient management strategies. This session will highlight the soil parameters and nutrient management approaches needed to improve nutrient use efficiency and deliver a win-win - improved water quality and profitable production.
4. Farmer engagement, behavioural change and knowledge exchange.
What’s the best way to promote farmer engagement on an individual or collective basis in management practices that achieve both agronomic and environmental goals? How can we accelerate the adoption of these practices among the diverse farming population at farm and catchment scale? These challenges will be addressed in this session from a research, advisory and farming perspective.
5. Adaptive management approaches to reducing nutrient loss risk.
The majority of catchment scale nutrient transfers occur from a small proportion of catchment areas during a few storm events. This session will explore the latest developments in the identification and management of critical source areas and critical source times of nutrient transfer in agricultural catchments.
6. Disentangling the impact of multiple stressors on aquatic ecology.
Achievement of water quality objectives requires an understanding of the links between land management, water chemistry and ecological quality. This session will explore the impact of nutrient and sediment dynamics in headwater streams on biological water quality indicators from a range of point, diffuse, acute and chronic pressures.
7. Soil erosion – measurement and mitigation.
The impacts of erosion on soil productivity and downstream water quality are a key catchment management challenge. This session aims to explore soil erosion measurement and provenance, assess the impact of landscape, land use, and climate interactions on soil erosion risk, and consider mitigation measures to reduce soil loss and downstream sediment transfers.
8. Economic analysis of environmentally-based regulations.
This theme explores integrated biophysical and economic modelling approaches to addressing water quality issues. This session welcomes research looking at the cost effectiveness or cost benefit analysis of policy measures at various scales.
For further information on the conference and abstract submission email CatchmentScience2015@teagasc.ie .