Report on nature-based solutions to East Cork flooding raises council's ire 

A study commissioned by Cork County Council regarding potential nature-based solutions for flooding in Midleton remains in limbo after the local authority took umbrage at the draft report’s contents.

The local authority commissioned two academics based at Trinity College Dublin — Professor Mary Bourke and Dr Paul Quinn of the university’s Department of Geography — to investigate in August 2024.

That came 10 months after Storm Babet wreaked havoc in the South-East of the country, particularly in the Midleton area, which was devastated by flood waters, with a full month’s worth of rainwater falling in less than two days.

The overall cost of the damage caused by the storm was estimated to be €200m.

A deal of mystery surrounded the fate of the Trinity report, which aimed to outline what impact nature-based solutions (NbS) could have if implemented in the Midleton area, which has been susceptible to flooding for generations.

NbS typically involve measures such as wetland restoration, forestation, and the introduction of green spaces in urban areas, to slow run-off and enhance water retention outside vulnerable areas.

While a draft report was delivered to the council by its authors in March 2025, a final version has never been published.

Documents released under Freedom of Information legislation now reveal that Cork County Council compiled a substantial list of comments regarding the report’s contents, taking issue with everything from typos, language and formatting, to the authors’ allegedly making assertions without substantiation.

Took issue with report

One comment from the council took issue with the report announcing its intention to focus “on the opportunity” for surface water storage during floods, stating: “This is a report, not a works proposal”.

Another objected to the “informal” language used in the report, after it stated that “it might be good to get access to” principal component analysis maps of the area, which are not available online.

Further discussion in the report of “opportunity areas” in the Midleton catchment “conflict with unsuitable areas identified in study site selection”, the council said. “It is either suitable or unsuitable — cannot be both,” they said.

The commenters complain that “exact co-ordinates [are] not provided for the sites to allow for analysis of options”.

Issue is also taken with the authors allegedly failing to note that some of the sites they identify as suitable for solutions are owned by multiple individuals, a fact the council describes as “misleading”.

Professor Bourke and Dr Quinn did not reply to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Cork County Council meanwhile said a second draft was delivered last March, adding that engagement with the authors “has continued in relation to completion of the report”.