What does a ‘clean’ river look like? – how Westport is rethinking climate change, biodiversity loss and water quality
Meaningful change in a town requires strong public participation, community-led activism, and expert guidance.
The Testing the Waters Project (TWP) in Westport brings all three of these elements together. Led by the Co-Centre for Climate + Biodiversity + Water, in partnership with Westport Tidy Towns and the Local Authority Waters Programme (LAWPRO), the year-long initiative aims to raise awareness of the water quality in the Carrowbeg River and spark discussions about what a ‘clean’ river looks like.
Funded by Research Ireland, the TWP takes an interdisciplinary approach, combining art, science, social science, and community engagement, to highlight local concerns around climate change, biodiversity loss, and water quality.
Its centrepiece, Flotilla 2025, is an art installation of bamboo rafts carrying intricately crafted sculptures inspired by native plants and species that indicate good water quality. It was unveiled on Saturday, 16 August as part of Heritage Week. Alongside the artwork, a citizen science programme was launched in collaboration with LAWPRO, allowing the community to play a hands-on role in monitoring and understanding the river.
Westport Tidy Towns Chairperson Eithne Larkin explained how having the community at the centre of this project was essential to the outcome: “The outcome of this project is not that we are suddenly going to have a really clean river. We won’t have a solution by next Saturday, the outcome is to have people talking, in the same room, and the local authority will step up to put the health of the river forward.
“We always have worked collaboratively with everybody, we have a large community presence and just the whole river aggravation didn’t sit very well with us,” said Eithne, “We wanted to work with everybody and that’s where bringing the artist in [came from], so the art work is the focus rather than individual groups.”
At the heart of the discussion on the river’s water quality is a debate of perception versus ecology. To many members of the public, a clean river means clear water without weeds or algae. To scientists, river health is measured by biodiversity and water quality. A river that looks untidy may in fact be thriving, while one that appears pristine can be ecologically degraded.
The challenge for communities and policymakers is balancing visual expectations with the realities of ecological health. This was a challenge for Westport, a town that is historically very proud of its perfectly manicured look.
Eithne explained how Westport Tidy Towns has shifted its approach towards sustainability: “Tidy Towns has evolved hugely, and if we need to think about how it has evolved, the river is the perfect example,” she said.
“I was Chairperson in 2008 when we last won the overall Ireland award, and we were all very happy. Our local fishermen came in every year and cleaned the river to perfection, there was nothing left in it. We thought a good river was meant to be absolutely swept clean and racked clean.
“Our thinking has evolved, and our challenge now is to move forward. The move toward sustainability where we live, and all of the work we do, is to get that balance with good practice from an ecological point of view, from an environmental point of view, and still maintain the tidiness.”
Anne Kearns is an Education, Public Engagement and Policy Manager with the Co-Centre for Climate + Biodiversity + Water and is the research lead on this project. She recognised that the project provided an important opportunity to listen to the community.
“[Some people], they have very strong memories of the pristineness of the riverways, they should be clean, and clean means there is no plant life, no debris, there is nothing in it. Westport Tidy Towns have come around to the idea that actually 'clean' means a good river with healthy river quality. That doesn’t always look 'clean', usually it looks pretty nice, but it doesn’t look ‘clean clean’, that's where the debate lies,” Anne explained.
The conversation about appearances versus ecology, Anne added, is where social science becomes crucial in helping to understand how best to engage with communities that care about water quality.
That point was echoed by Luke Drea, Senior Community Water Officer with LAWPRO, who noted that under Article 14 of the EU Water Framework Directive, public participation is central to water management.
He said: “We were delighted to support the project, it embodies everything that one might consider when we think about managing our surface waters and the issues that come up in terms of social peace, community peace and knowledge transfer.
“One of the things this project has done brilliantly, and I think the environmental movement as a whole has been a bit remiss on considering social science. Not everybody realises they care about the river, but you need to speak to people through a lens that interests them, you need to consider social science.”
Researcher Elizabeth Salter, who is analysing the TWP with the goal of applying lessons learnt here to a similar initiative in Louisburgh, agreed that having opportunities for community involvement are key to the success of projects like this one.
“To have multiple possibilities for engagement is really important and this project has been doing that very well. It’s really interesting the ways that people do want to engage in different types of ways. There are different ways of taking action, putting the installations in the river here is a form of action.
“Conversations are important and they can also be action too, conversations are not just sitting around and chatting, they are open spaces.”
The TWP success comes from its community-led vision and the combined use of art, social science and scientific expertise. By encouraging important conversations about climate change, biodiversity loss, and what true water quality means, it has strengthened Westport’s commitment to protecting the Carrowbeg River.
This approach offers a clear model for other towns, demonstrating that lasting environmental progress requires communities to work closely with expert guidance, and that collaboration is essential to meeting these challenges.
This article has been funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.