Whitaker Ideas Forum: Farmers Perception of Climate Change in Ireland

This talk will be about the project that I am currently working on RiskAquaSoil. RiskAquaSoil. It is an EU INTERREG Atlantic Arc project supported by Euorpean Regional Development Funds. The aim of the project is to build resilience in our catchments and adapt to the impacts of climate change in terms of increased flooding, drought and water pollution. Due to the geographic position bordering the Atlantic ocean the Atlantic Area has high exposure to climate change. Increased intensity and frequency of storms, drought and flooding, altered hydrological cycles and precipitation variance have implications for the agriculture landscape. There are huge uncertainties in the way climate change will directly and indirectly affect agricultural and food systems. Since the landscape in the Atlantic Area is predominantly agricultural, and due to the high dependence of this sector to the climate variability, a transnational approach was set up to look work on the following topics:

Climate change effect on soil management: soil erosion, compaction and desertification have been pointed out as other key threats of the Atlantic natural resources.

Climate change effect on water management: while over the last years river floods have severely affected some of the Atlantic territories, in other regions droughts have drastically increased.

Lack of local community involvement and skills in risk management and climate change adaptation: in most of the European countries, damage compensation systems do not foresee the participation of local communities when applying these compensating measures. Moreover, increasing the adaptive capacity of farmers and systems, both to recover from shocks and to be prepared for changes is crucial.

This is one of a series of seminars in the Whitaker Ideas Forum. Sinead will be representing the Innovation and Structural Change cluster.

The Whitaker Ideas Forum is a weekly seminar, running Wednesday’s throughout the semester from 1:00pm-2:00pm in CA110. It provides the opportunity for members of the Institute to showcase their research. The result are presentations that highlight the diversity of the research being undertaken, while allowing for an opportunity to engage in discussions and, sometimes, collaboration with attendees. Below, you will find a list of this semester’s seminars, please click the title for more information on that seminar.