​In response to the serious flooding of winter 2015/2016 specifically related to turloughs, the Programme for a Partnership Government (2016) stated that resources would be provided for "studies into individual problematic (prone to flooding) Turlough systems, if requested by a local authority or another relevant State agency". Geological Survey Ireland (GSI), a division of the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment (DCCAE), and the leading national authority on groundwater science, delivered on this commitment by initiating a new three-year project (GWFlood) to investigate the drivers and extent of karst groundwater flooding in Ireland. The remit of this project was to advance understanding of karst groundwater flooding in Ireland, address the deficit of data available, and enable local and national authorities to make scientifically informed decisions regarding groundwater flood risk management in karst areas. To achieve this, the GSI in collaboration with Trinity College Dublin (TCD) initially and later with the Institute of Technology Carlow (ITC), developed a monitoring, mapping and modelling programme to address the knowledge gap regarding karst groundwater systems. This report describes the implementation of a turlough monitoring network and the methodology used to produce the historic and predictive groundwater flood maps.

Reference

McCormack, T., Naughton, O., Bradford, R., Campanyà, J., Morrissey, P., Gill, L., Lee, M., (2020) GWFlood Project: Monitoring, Modelling and Mapping Karst Groundwater Flooding in Ireland, Geological Survey Ireland Report

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GWFlood project