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Ireland’s Environment 2012
44
Introduction
The WFD was introduced in 2000 as
a European-wide law that brings a
common approach to safeguarding
all water and water-dependent
ecosystems: groundwaters, rivers,
lakes, transitional waters, coastal
waters and wetlands. The main
goals of WFD are:
n
to maintain high- and good-
status waters where they exist
already
n
to restore waters that do not
support aquatic ecosystems
adequately.
These are ambitious goals which all
EU countries, including Ireland, must
attain and they provide a vision and
a target for the management and
protection of water across the EU
over the coming decades. The main
unit of management for the WFD
is the River Basin District (RBD), and
Ireland has been divided into seven
RBDs. River basin management
plans for all seven RBDs were
finalised in July 2010. This marked
the culmination of many years of
effort and significant expenditure in
monitoring and assessing Ireland’s
surface waters and groundwaters;
classifying the waters according
to their quality status; and setting
objectives with a view to protecting
and improving these waters
in accordance with objectives
of the WFD.
The Current Situation
The WFD requires surface waters
to be classified into high, good,
moderate, poor and bad status.
Groundwater is classified according
to its chemical and quantitative
status. The methods for classifying
surface waters have been
intercalibrated in a formal exercise
required by the WFD. This is in
order to ensure comparability across
Europe. In addition, the former
assessments of Irish waters, which
have been conducted since the
1970s, have now been adapted to
ensure they are compliant with the
needs of the WFD and comparable
with methods used in other
countries.
Groundwater Quality
Groundwater is important as a
source of drinking water in Ireland
– providing approximately 25% of
drinking water nationally. It also has
significance in driving the ecology of
many rivers, lakes and estuaries,
especially during low-flow periods
when groundwater forms a significant
part of surface water flows.
Table 4.1 provides a summary of the
status of groundwater bodies in each
of the seven RBDs and nationally in
terms of numbers of water bodies
and area covered. It shows that the
majority of Irish groundwater bodies
(85%) achieve good status
as required under the WFD.
The bulk of poor-status groundwater
bodies, particularly in the Western
and Shannon RBDs, are in areas
where groundwater is contributing
significant loads of phosphate
to surface water bodies that are
failing to meet their WFD objectives
because of eutrophication from
diffuse sources. A small number of
water bodies are also at less than
good status due to site-specific
contamination, e.g. from historical
mining in the Avoca catchment and
at Silvermines.
Importantly, WFD criteria do not
include microbiological elements
in determining the assessment of
ecological status. In 2010, 40%
of all samples taken from the
285 wells and springs in the EPA
national groundwater monitoring
network were polluted by microbial
pathogens, which can pose a threat
to private water supplies in particular.
Table 4.1
River Basin District Summary of Status Classification Results for Groundwater Bodies (Source: EPA)
RBD
Good Status
(No. of water
bodies)
Good Status
(% RBD Area)
Poor Status
(No. of water
bodies)
Poor Status
(% RBD Area)
Eastern
67
89.7
8
10.3
Neagh Bann
26
95.3
2
4.7
North West
72
100
0
0
South East
146
97.8
5
2.2
Shannon
182
74.5
60
25.5
South West
77
96.8
7
3.2
Western
71
65.2
34
34.8
National
641
85.6
116
14.4