Geographies of Catchments Data
In Ireland, integrated catchment management (ICM) is a dominant approach to water management. ICM manages water by integrating ecological factors with social, political, and economic ones to understand what affects water quality within a ‘catchment’ (an area from which water flows into a water body). Data problems, however, can limit the extent of this approach. When we explored publicly available data on economic and social factors that impact water quality to better contextualise the catchments in our field sites, we found it trickier to draw meaningful conclusions than we anticipated.
Note: the original TCD/EPA project on waterschemes.ie seems no longer live, but can be accessed in archive on above link