Farmers on the Irish sea coastline with an interest in biodiversity & climate change

Background: The UCC ECHOES project (funded by the EU INTERREG Ireland Wales Programme) is investigating the effect of climate change on the habitats surrounding the Irish Sea for two overwintering bird species – the Eurasian Curlew and Greenland White-fronted Geese.

Benefits to nature: By learning more about these birds’ habitats and the likely effects of climate change along the Irish Sea coastlines, we aim to help farmers, site managers and land owners to make informed decisions on how to preserve these and other species in the future, especially with rising sea levels and a changing climate in mind.  

Benefits to you: As well as producing valuable insight and research, the ECHOES project team are also developing digital tools which are designed to help predict changes to farmers’ site. These tools will access a variety of data, such as satellite imagery of habitats, species datasets and climate change projections.  The tools are being developed with openly available data and code to allow a wide variety of users to access them. Farmers may find this particularly useful for anticipating the effect of climate change on their land, even without the presence of the birds.

Get involved: To make these tools as useful as possible, we would really value some feedback from the people who are most likely to use them, such as farmers, land managers and site owners. In addition, our researchers on site in Wexford would love to get in touch with farmers in that area who may be interested in a ‘walk and talk’ about the bird species and in seeing the research setup we have there. 

Contact [email protected] for more information or to get involved