Discover Duhallow Issue 65

How To Access Information On Local Water Quality

By Mike O'Connor Ecologist at IRD Duhallow

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) monitor water quality of rivers, lakes, estuaries, groundwaters and coastal waters across Ireland and all the data they gather is made available on a website called ‘catchments.ie’. Much of this data is mapped and you can access mapsby going to catchments.ie and selecting the ‘Maps’ tab. Once you have done this you will be able to select an abundance of maps, each one representing a different dataset. Spending some time navigating around the site and investigating the different layers is probably the best way to become familiar with all the data the website has to offer. For the purpose of this article, we will focus on some data relevant to the Water Framework Directive, and we will use two exercise to help you get started on your data quest. For the purposes of monitoring, Ireland classifies water quality status as being bad, poor, moderate, good, or high. A q-value system is used with Q1 representing very poor water quality and Q5 representing very highwater quality. Water quality status is then represented on the map using different colours as can be seen in the figure below:

Fig 1: Ireland's Q-value System

Fig 2: Ireland's Q-value System

Under the Water Framework Directive (WFD), all waterbodies are required to be at least good status by 2027. Waterbodies that are at risk of not meeting their objectives are assigned ‘At-Risk’ status under Ireland’s River Basin Management Plan. If your local waterbody is at ‘At-Risk’, you will be able to find a report that highlights the significant pressures affecting water quality.

Exercise 1

Find out what condition your local river is:

1. Go to www.catchments.ie

2. Click on the Maps tab

3. Click the Monitoring & Flow tab

4. Select the Latest River Q-Values layer from the drop-down menu

5. Zoom in to your local river and click on the coloured dot to see what Q-value was obtained and where the monitoring station is located.

Exercise 2

Find the significant pressures on an at-risk river:

1. Go to www.catchments.ie

2. Click on the Maps tab

3. Click on the Status and Risk tab

4. Select ‘WFD Risk 3rd Cycle’ from the drop-down menu

5. Select the ‘River Waterbodies Risk’ layer from the drop-down menu

6. On the map, the river network will be classified into green, orange and red colours. Zoom into your local area and click on a red-coloured river near you. This is an at-risk waterbody.

7. On the pop-up side-bar (left of page), select ‘View the Data Page’. This will bring you to the data page for that river. 8

. Select the catchments link at the top right of the page (e.g. ’18 Blackwater (Munster)’). This will bring you to the data page for that catchment.

9. Select the Catchment Assessment link (e.g. ’18 Blackwater (Munster) Catchment Summary WFD Cycle 3’)

10. Scroll down to Appendix 3 and find the significant pressures affecting the river you selected