Community-funded behavioural change initiatives: Water quality in Ireland

Mitigating the deterioration in water quality is contingent on changing human behaviours. Community-based behavioural change initiatives are one approach to changing people's actions, which is distinct from many behavioural change programmes that target the actions of individuals. This paper examines a behavioural change initiative aiming to foster proactive community engagement in the management and protection of water catchments in Ireland. The initiative comprises a grant scheme for community groups to undertake a variety of activities to support improvements in water quality, ranging from education and awareness activities to physical interventions. The analysis finds that higher grant awards and a greater number of grant applications are positively associated with either a higher likelihood of engagement with public and private sector stakeholders or participation in the State's River Basin Management Plan process on improving water quality. While this demonstrates some success for the grant scheme, questions remain unanswered with respect to the efficacy of schemes like this. With limited quantitative data available both on the precise nature of interventions applied and measured target outcomes, it was not possible to discern what community group or project attributes are critical to the success of the grant scheme. This deficiency means that effectively replicating or scaling up successful projects like this will be practically challenging.