December 15, 2020 9:54 am
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has published the Water Quality Indicators Report 2019 which provides an assessment on Ireland’s surface water and groundwater quality.
Published today (Tuesday, December 15), the report highlights that the main threat to water quality is the presence of too much nutrients, such as phosphorus and nitrogen, which come primarily from agriculture and waste water.
Over one third of rivers, and a quarter of lakes are failing to meet their environmental quality standards for nutrients.
Over one fifth of our groundwater, estuarine and coastal water bodies have high nitrogen concentrations, the document says.
Just over half of rivers and lakes are in high or good biological quality. The rivers surveyed in 2019 have shown more improvements than declines overall, which is welcome; however, further action is needed to return waters to a satisfactory condition, the report says.