Of all the impacts climate change will bring to Ireland, it is our vulnerability to unexpected deluges of water from the sea, sky and rivers that will probably affect us the most.
The Irish Climate Change Assessment reports published by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2023 noted that Ireland is very vulnerable to coastal flooding and sea-level rise. All Irish major cities and many regional cities and towns are located by the sea, while 20 per cent of the coastline is already exposed to erosion.
The frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation events will increase. Estimated sea-level rise could lead to a quadrupling in the number of properties affected by flooding in coastal locations. For Limerick city alone, the EPA estimates the cost of extreme floods under a high-end scenario of sea-level rise may increase up to 12.5-fold, amounting to over €1 billion for a single event.
But there is still an air of magical thinking about our response to flooding. The public and political discourse continues to focus on quick-fix solutions and State interventions that, in the long-term, are neither financially nor socially sustainable.
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This is not to underestimate the impact of flooding. The damage that flooding causes to property is devastating, but the stress is compounded by insurance difficulties.
There is no State-backed obligation on insurers to provide cover, leaving property owners acutely vulnerable in the event of another flooding episode. This problem is affecting a growing number of buildings, with as many as one in twenty buildings struggling to get any insurance according to a recent study by the Central Bank. Flood risk is also a barrier to new housing development, again driving up the political pressure for engineered solutions.
In turn, communities at risk put pressure on the political system to deliver engineering solutions to flood risk that will be acceptable to insurers, all of which tends to sideline the potential for transformative adaptation.
Interventions such as dredging, sea walls and river realignment are hugely expensive, often very damaging to ecosystems and wildlife, and tend to wear out or depreciate over time. The current investment programme by the Office of Public Works (OPW) only covers 21 projects, yet will cost an estimated €1.3 billion by 2030.
In a 2020 journal article, Trinity College Dublin researchers, Marcus Collier and Mary Bourke, argue for more consideration of green infrastructure solutions such as constructed wetlands, afforestation and riparian buffers, and peatland restoration. They also suggest the construction of “leaky dams” to hold flood water and slow its movement or divert it away from at-risk areas.
They observe the OPW is confined in its actions by the immediate political and societal demand for protection of property and that this is a significant barrier to the adoption of nature-based solutions.
In urban areas, we should be replacing hard surfaces wherever possible with plants to absorb heavy rainfall
Short-term thinking and a lack of appreciation of the social and environmental costs of hard engineering mean that nature-based solutions are rarely given a chance to work. This happens even though green infrastructure, unlike grey infrastructure, appreciates over time and provides multiple societal and environmental co-benefits.
Complicating matters further is the fact that nature-based solutions, even in one area, tend to involve a mosaic of interventions from wetland restoration to sustainable drainage schemes for roads, afforestation and constructed reed beds on a patchwork of land parcels involving numerous landowners. All of this requires patient dialogue, lots of time and an attitude of co-operation and trust.
This is why the River Trusts have so much potential as they harness the multiple stakeholders and local expertise that is needed to protect rivers in their natural state.
We should be much better prepared for flooding, but hard engineering solutions will not provide all the answers. They are too expensive to implement everywhere given the likely number of properties at risk.
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The OPW’s approach reflects its outdated mandate under the 1945 Arterial Drainage Act, which requires the OPW to prioritise drainage, even when harmful. Despite many EU directives covering the environment and water, no law mandates nature-based flood solutions. There is also a funding and cost-benefit bias towards dredging, pipes, tanks, walls and drains over wetlands.
“Slow” water also filters out pollutants – even nitrates and phosphorous – and stores water more effectively for dry periods. Nature-based solutions limit damage to riverbeds and ecosystems that would be otherwise scoured by speeding up the flow of water in heavy rainfall.
In urban areas, we should be replacing hard surfaces wherever possible with plants to absorb heavy rainfall. We need more land to act as a sponge for excess water instead of continually trying to drive it away, so we will need to enlist the help of farmers and financially reward them for ecosystem services.
As the writer Erica Gies puts it, water always wins: better to work with it rather than to continually fight it. But don’t expect to see nature-based solutions get priority in the next National Development Plan.
Sadhbh O‘Neill is a climate and environmental researcher and activist
