Environment and Heritage

Environmental and heritage issues are increasingly important issues for any local and regional development context. Although environmental policy is commonly viewed as separate from planning policy the two are interrelated. ICLRD’s work in this field started with the a series of studies focussed on the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive and a river basin management approach in Ireland and Northern Ireland. River basin management is a form of environmental planning via functional regions. From a governance perspective it makes sense to manage water issues within river basins. Unfortunately, however, river catchment boundaries do not match with political-administrative or socio-economic regional boundaries, or indeed with groundwater boundaries! Thus further coordination and ‘institutional interplay’ is required to resolve these mismatch issues.

Currently, marine spatial planning and marine protected area designation are areas of heightened policy activity where cross-sectoral coordination and transboundary cooperation, particularly with regard to the two jurisdictions on the island of Ireland. ICLRD is actively concerned to ensure integrated policy-making for coastal areas which can easily fall between the marine and terrestrial in policy terms.

Heritage similarly represents an area of emerging interest for ICLRD and relates to how issues of natural and cultural heritage and particular qualities of the both the built and natural environment are addressed in plans and strategies, whether at community, local, regional or national level. Within this context, landscape is a critically important issue which brings together both natural and cultural heritage aspects.

• Marine Spatial Planning, Brexit and the island of Ireland (Irish Geography 2019)
• Spaces for Public Participation: valuing the cross-border landscape in North West Ireland (Irish Geography 2019)
• Retrospect and Prospects for Cross-Border Cooperation on the Historic Environment (2017)
• Cross-Border Greenways and Cycle Routes on the Island of Ireland (2015)
•  Small Island: Big Marine Challenges Ahead for the Blue Economy (2013)
• The Elbe River Basin District Integrated Cross Border Management in Practice (2012)
• The Connecticut River Basin: Integrating Water Quality Improvements with Regional Land Use Plans (2011)
  
• Responding to the Environmental Challenge? Spatial Planning, Cross-Border Cooperation and River Basin Management (2011)

ICLRD Leads: Linda McElduff, Andrew McClelland, Heather Ritchie, Adrian Grant, Ainhoa González, Cormac Walsh