Copyright © 2014 by the author(s). Published here under license by the Resilience Alliance. Kelly-Quinn, M., S. Blacklocke, M. Bruen, R. Earle, E. O'Neill, J. O'Sullivan, and P. Purcell. 2014. Dublin Ireland: a city addressing challenging water supply, management, and governance issues. Ecology and Society 19(4): 10. http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ ES-06921-190410 Research, part of a Special Feature on Urban Water Governance Dublin Ireland: a city addressing challenging water supply, management, and governance issues Mary Kelly-Quinn 1, Sean Blacklocke 2, Michael Bruen 2, Ray Earle 3, Eoin O'Neill 4, John O'Sullivan 2 and Patrick Purcell 2 ABSTRACT. The population of Dublin City and its suburbs currently stands at 1.3 million and is projected to reach 2.1 million by 2022. There is pressure on its water supply system (inadequate catchment sources, ageing infrastructure including treatment facilities, and distribution network) with little or no spare capacity despite Ireland’s relatively high rainfall that is well distributed throughout the year; albeit the greatest rainfall occurs in the west and southwest and at some remove from Dublin. The current governance approach to addressing the projected water supply deficit relies heavily on a combination of identifying new supply sources to secure the long-term water supply needs of the city together with an intense drive toward achieving “demand-side” reduced usage and conservation targets in accordance with EU benchmarks for various individual and sectoral users. This potentially emerging crisis of water scarcity in Dublin, with drivers including population growth, greater industrial and institutional demands, migration, and climate change, has generated one of the most significant public water works projects proposed in Irish history, which is to abstract raw water from the Shannon River Basin in the midland region and, following treatment, pump it to a storage reservoir in a cut-away bog before piping to the Greater Dublin Area. The preparations for this scheme have brought to the forefront some longstanding Irish water resources governance issues and challenges. This provides a unique opportunity and imperative at this time to take a more comprehensive look at the decision-making process in this regard, one done in the context of new European and national policies requiring incorporation of integrated planning to sustain ecosystem services, water resources management, water services management, and flood defense principles, and one taking account of the current unprecedented state of flux in which water resources management institutions in Ireland, and in particular Dublin, find themselves following years of unconsolidated legislation and stand-alone institutions. Key Words: demand management; Dublin; full cost recovery; governance; water supply INTRODUCTION accounted for and “internalized” on the externalizing The population of the greater Dublin area (GDA) is projected establishments or sectors, i.e., households, industry, and to grow significantly over the coming decades from its current agriculture, via charges. Resource costs are opportunity costs. 1.3 million. Somewhere in the region of 550 million liters per Therefore, in the case of the Dublin water supply proposal under day of water are currently required (for domestic water supply the WFD, if some volume of water from the Shannon River Basin alone usage is in the range 140 to 150 liters per person per day) is transferred to the Eastern River Basin, and in doing so it can and it is estimated that if demand behavior/culture remains be shown that this volume of water is no longer put to its long- relatively unchanged and factors such as population growth, term highest valued use, there is a resource cost associated with migration/urbanization, climate change, and innovation/ that transfer that should be accounted for, priced, and recovered. technological balance regarding supply/demand are considered, Conversely, if diverting a volume of water makes the use of that this figure will increase to 800 million liters per day by 2031 water more efficient, such as would be the case if a seasonal (Dublin City Council 2010a). There is pressure on the current interbasin transfer could alleviate flood risks in the Shannon water supply infrastructure to meet ever-increasing demand with River Basin while also buffering a chronic potable water supply little or no spare capacity, despite the fact that Ireland has deficit in Dublin, such a transaction would have a negative relatively high rainfall that is well distributed throughout the resource cost and should be added back to the interbasin transfer’s year. Water shortages are not uncommon in the city in summers balance sheet as a benefit offsetting other costs. In reality, the when the preceding winter has had lower than average rainfall. proposal for the Shannon transfer obviously has multiple costs and benefits and thus “full cost accounting” of all of the financial, This comes at a time in which Ireland is being required to environmental, and resource costs is both required and necessary comprehensively revise its water pricing policies pursuant to the before an appropriate charging regime for the use of this water European Water Framework Directive (WFD). “Full cost can be developed. recovery” under the WFD requires Member States to develop pricing schemes that take account of and recover not only the In light of this, we attempt in this paper to highlight some of the financial costs of providing water and sewerage services, e.g., key challenges for water resources management and governance capital, engineering, operation and maintenance, administrative, currently confronting Dublin City and Ireland as a nation, and but also environmental and resource costs. In simplest terms, discuss how these challenges might best be addressed within the environmental costs are equivalent to the hypothetical framework of Ireland’s new emerging water governance expenditures to remediate damages to water resources, e.g., fish institutions. Although many of the issues raised are not habitat, brought about by possibly illegal, poorly regulated, or individually novel, the combination of challenges faced by Dublin even perfectly legal abstractions or effluents/runoff to streams, within the newly emerging national governance framework i.e., “externalized costs.” These environmental costs are to be presents a unique opportunity to provide baseline information 1School of Biology & Environmental Science, University College Dublin, 2School of Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering, University College Dublin, 3International Water Association, 4School of Geography, Planning & Environmental Policy, University College Dublin Ecology and Society 19(4): 10 http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol19/iss4/art10/ for future analysis on the evolution of water governance . An historic focus on water management through supply approaches in Ireland. Although the impetus for the paper is the expansion issue of future supply of potable water to the GDA’s water users, . An absence of domestic water charges tangential and broader aspects of water resources management are considered in the context of Ireland’s ongoing efforts to . Emerging climate change uncertainties incorporate fundamental principles of the Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) concept into its myriad of water governance institutions. In Ireland there is a mismatch between the highest availability of It is noteworthy that although the term governance is variably water for abstraction and the highest concentration of potable interpreted (Franks 2004), it is used here as the “range of political, water users. social, economic and administrative systems that are in place” (as The east of the country has on average 150 rainfall days per year defined by Rogers and Hall 2003:7) to manage water resources. yielding between 750 and 1000 mm of rainfall (Met Éireann 2014). There is not one single, ideal governance model, suitable for all The 225 days of rainfall in the west generally average between situations, and there is general agreement that good governance 1000 and 1250 mm per year but exceed 2000 mm per year in many can be achieved with a variety of different paradigms, including mountainous areas. Dublin City sits in the east of the country at elements of top-down, bottom-up, market forces and the foot of the Dublin-Wicklow Mountains. Although there are collaborative networks. several medium to small rivers and two canals within the GDA there are no substantial natural lakes within 50 km of the city. Many advocate that water governance should only deal with the Furthermore, no major aquifers exist within Dublin City processes and institutions that make decisions about water Council’s jurisdictional boundary. resources (e.g., Lautze et al. 2011) although the principles of effective water governance, compiled by the Global Water The historic development of Dublin’s water supply underlies some Partnership (Rogers and Hall 2003) and set out in UN Water of its current problems. documents (UNESCO 2009) also include outcomes as Sourcing of water within its own jurisdiction and from the highlighted by Lautze et al. (2011). The 12 principles are: open, jurisdictions of the other local authorities is a practice that is likely transparent, participative, accountable, effective, coherent, to continue to create problems for the GDA in the future. The city efficient, communicative, equitable, integrative, sustainable, and has a system of water supply that has