Facilitating implementation of landscape-scale water management: The integrated constructed wetland concept

This research addressed measures necessary to overcome barriers to the implementation of integrated resource management solutions delivering multiple ecosystem services, using the case of the Anne Valley integrated constructed wetlands (ICWs) in County Waterford, Ireland. The benefits of ICWs are reviewed, and feedback from interviews with a range of people from farming, national government and policy, business, County Council and other perspectives, is analysed using the STEEP framework. Whilst we acknowledge bias in interviewee selection, there is considerable local support for ICWs reflecting multiple social, environmental and economic benefits. Indeed, the Irish government has published design guidance for ICWs. However, there remain disconnects between some regulatory and other bodies, which appear to be related to their tradition of looking at issues from a more narrow, discipline-specific perspective. These barriers are not unique to Ireland, but representative of the areas of cultural change necessary to enable more connected ways of thinking, technological development and implementation and its subsequent licensing and regulation. The experience therefore has generic relevance not merely for the broader pervasion of the benefits of ICWs across Ireland and the wider world, but also in evaluating and implementing the efficacy of similar multi-benefit solutions.