The EU Horizon-funded Spongeworks project was officially launched on Thursday 26th February in Aughrim, Co. Wicklow, at a well-attended event hosted by Wicklow Uplands Council, Wicklow County Council, LAWPRO and East Wicklow Rivers Trust.
The event was oversubscribed, with a full house of over ninty in attendance, reflecting strong local interest in nature-based solutions for climate resilience for the Aughrim (Avoca) catchment — an area coincidently significantly affected by heavy rainfall during Storm Chandra in late January.
The project was formally launched by the Cathaoirleach of Wicklow County Council, Cllr. Melanie Corrigan, who highlighted the importance of community engagement in climate action. Drawing on her background in upland farming, she noted, “The value of lived experience and local knowledge in shaping effective and sustainable responses to environmental challenges is vital. All of us in the farming community are witnesses to our changing climate. Our understanding of our land means we are best placed to identify the solutions and help to implement them”.
Jim Callery, Climate Action Officer with Wicklow County Council, provided an overview of the Spongeworks project, which brings together a strong partnership of regions and organisations across Europe, from Greece in the south to Ukraine in the north. He outlined Wicklow’s role as an Associate Region and explained why Aughrim in the Avoca Catchment was selected as the study area.
He emphasised the importance of collaboration, noting that successful outcomes for the catchment will depend on strengthened relationships between the Council, NGOs, stakeholders and, critically, the local community. Referencing the impact of recent flooding during Storm Chandra, he reinforced the need for practical, locally informed resilience measures across the catchment.
Professor Mary Bourke of the School of Geography at Trinity College Dublin delivered an engaging presentation on the challenges facing catchments and landscapes in the context of historical landscape change — both urban and rural — and accelerating climate change.
“We are now living in climate change,” she noted. “Our weather patterns are beginning to show this, and we are increasingly experiencing weather extremes. We can’t restore what we have lost but through nature-based solutions can rebuild capacity within our river catchment and reduce flooding risk.”
Her presentation focused on how water moves through landscapes, with particular attention to flooding and drought. Professor Bourke stressed the importance of nature-based solutions in building resilient landscapes, explaining that natural systems help retain water in the landscape, slow its movement into rivers, reduce downstream flood risk, and maintain soil moisture to mitigate drought conditions. She cautioned against overreliance on heavy engineering approaches alone, calling instead for integrated solutions that work with natural systems.
Following the presentations, the audience participated in an interactive workshop session. They engaged directly with speakers, marked up maps of across the catchment, and shared observations and experiences of recent flooding as well as historical local knowledge.
The event underscored a central message of the Spongeworks project - climate resilience is not achieved through science and engineering alone, but through meaningful engagement and partnership. Success depends on working with communities, understanding local landscapes and needs, and ensuring that decision-making is informed by practical knowledge and evidence-based experience.
Chief Executive of Wicklow County Council, Emer O’Gorman said, “The flooding in Aughrim had a devasting impact on the community of Aughrim. We need to rethink our approach to water management in the landscape, recognizing that County Wicklow is vulnerable to fluvial flooding. Nature-based solutions must be part of our strategy to ensure we build a more resilient response to climate in partnership with our communities.”
Collaboration and partnership are essential to delivering effective, lasting climate action on the ground in Aughrim and across the wider Wicklow region. The project aims to demonstrate how nature-based solutions, prove they work and then build strategy to roll them out across the landscape so that we can use them at a scale that will impact on slowing the flow out of the catchment.