Ballycanew Scenarios

Ballycanew is a catchment in north Wexford, near Gorey. It is just over 1,100ha in area. The main farm enterprises are beef and dairying with spring barley being the main tillage crop. It is mainly representative of heavier soils used for grass-based production in the south and southeast of Ireland. About 2/3 of the catchment has poorly drained soils being on the edge of the Mackamores; as a result, phosphorus is the main nutrient at risk of loss from this site through overland flow. There is also a risk of nitrogen loss through leaching on the more freely drained soils to the west of the catchment.

The Ballycanew Scenarios aim is to make recommendations for actions from basic strategies widely implemented to more specific requirements according to site circumstances, both physical and habitat aspects, at the correct spatial extent.

Therefore, this project is working with 3 different levels of buffer:

LEVEL 1: A default 2 m wide buffer but with fenced cattle exclusion (assumed grazing in rotation possible for all fields and assumed BMPs like off-stream drinkers). In most cases, the retention of existing wooded features is required. 

LEVEL 2: Additional measures to level 1. Riparian buffer zones but including (i) increases in width where flow delivery requires it, maybe locally widened or wider whole reaches; (ii) enhancement of wooded features if justified by runoff trapping or absence of such features for habitats on a natural stream reach. Increased buffer width is not justified even on natural streams unless for reasons of flow interception (or habitat/sedignation etc) according to desk data. Level 2 measures take a whole field system view of treatment by being selective with regard to spatial and temporal elements of flow, including cumulative flow across fields.

LEVEL 3: Additional measures to level 1 (often instead of level 2 option, unless noted to be complimentary). Includes a wide range of measures bespoke to the field situation including measures in the riparian space, in the ditch. Level 3 measures particularly consider as much as possible the wider functioning of the catchment in terms of collective flow from areas through the channel network as well as wider aspects of infrastructure development/improvement.