The Water Forum’s Annual Report for 2021 has just been made available on our website.
Despite COVID restrictions 2021 was a very busy year. The year started off with a bang with members working to agree submissions on the Food Wise 2030 Strategy, the Nitrates Action Plan and the Common Agricultural Policy Strategic Plan to ensure that these policies could better address Ireland’s water quality objectives.
Reliable and resilient water and wastewater services are fundamental for any society to thrive. Our submission to the draft National Water Resources Plan highlighted the need to be more ambition and urgency in the development of our water services infrastructure to meet all of our legislative requirements and to build a 21st century water and wastewater service infrastructure and operations.
Our research programme supports the Forum’s decision making and 2021 topics included ‘Optimising Water Quality Returns from Peatland Management while Delivering Co-benefits for Climate and Biodiversity. A well-attended webinar on the topic that further explored the issues and considered the report recommendations.
In the latter part of the year the Forum drafted a new Strategic Plan for 2022-2027 to focus our work into the 3rd River Basin Management Plan cycle. The members and staff had the opportunity to evaluate our work to date and consider our future contributions to water policy and how we can strengthen that going forward.
At the end of 2021, we said goodbye to our Chair, Dr Tom Collins who helped shape the Forum, its thinking and work programmes during six years at the helm. His contribution was enormous and we will miss him immensely. We wish Tom great joy in his future endeavours.
