EPA - Ireland's Environment 2016 - An Assessment

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73 Chapter 5: Inland and Marine Waters
Threats to Improving Water Quality
Improvements in water quality will not be seen if
agricultural pressures are not adequately managed.
The ongoing and planned expansion in the agricultural
sector under Food Harvest 20204 and its successor, Food
Wise 2025,5 may threaten improvements in water quality,
if not adequately managed. The dairy sector has been
set a target of increasing milk production by 50% by
2020. Under the expansion plans, increased application
of nitrogen and phosphorus to agricultural land is likely to
happen in areas of the country where the concentrations
of these nutrients in water are already elevated. The
challenge is to target management measures to prevent
any increases in nitrate and phosphorus concentrations
in waters. Both Food Harvest 2020 and Food Wise 2025
acknowledge that there is a risk to water quality if the
expansion of agricultural sector is not managed in a
sustainable manner.
Urban Waste Water
Our treatment of sewage and industrial waste
water (water that is discharged to sewers) continues
to be one of the principal pressures on water
quality in Ireland.
A recent report found that urban waste water continues
to be one of the principal pressures on water quality
in Ireland (EPA, 2015a). With regard to the impact
of receiving waters, the number of seriously polluted
river sites where pollution is attributed to urban waste
water discharges fell from nine in 2009 to one in 2014.
Of the total number of incidents reported to the EPA,
72% related to breaches of discharge quality standards.
42% of these incidents were attributed to insufficient
treatment capacity and 21% of incidents were attributed
to operational and management practices. Raw sewage
discharges from 45 urban areas were highlighted as a
priority issue to be eliminated by 2019. By the end of 2015
the number of raw sewage discharges was reduced to 43
locations. The report concluded that continued investment
in infrastructure and a reversal in the recent decline in
capital expenditure are essential to provide the waste
water treatment necessary to protect receiving waters and
meet obligations under EPA authorisations and European
Directives. Waste water discharges also contributed to
poor water quality at 6 of Ireland’s 137 identified bathing
waters (EPA, 2016c).
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5
Inland Fisheries Issues
Fisheries resources deliver economic and social
benefits to the Irish economy.
Despite the ever-increasing pressures on our fisheries,
Ireland still possesses a wealth of inland and sea fisheries
resources. Apart from their innate value, these fisheries
resources also deliver economic and social benefits to the
Irish economy in the form of job creation, social inclusion
and tourism revenue. Recreational angling in Ireland is
estimated to contribute approximately €836 million to the
Irish economy every year (Inland Fisheries Ireland, 2015).
The long-term conservation of our national fisheries
resources requires the maintenance of healthy and
ecologically viable ecosystems. There are a number of key
concerns that are undermining the ecological integrity of
water bodies and the national fisheries resources (King
et al., 2011). These include poor water quality, barriers
to fish migration (particularly for a number of protected
species), land management practices causing adverse
physical changes to fisheries habitat (instream and
bankside), changes in the quantity and dynamics of water
flow caused by flow regulation and abstraction, invasive
alien species that impact on native fish populations and
the collapse of eel populations seen across Europe.
Marine Litter
Not only does litter spoil the beauty of our
coastlines but the impact on marine life can be far
more serious and insidious.
While marine litter can have a very obvious impact on the
aesthetic quality of coastal amenities, the impact on marine
life can be far more serious and insidious. It is estimated
that plastic litter kills an estimated 100,000 marine
mammals and turtles worldwide every year, including
30,000 seals, and up to one million seabirds, through either
entanglement or ingestion. Litter on the Irish coast comes
from a variety of sources, both land and sea.
The Department of Housing, Planning, Community and
Local Government undertakes an annual longitudinal
litter survey at four locations, four times every year in
accordance with OSPAR methodology. Marine litter is one
of the descriptors (10/11) to prove Good Environmental
Status (GES) in the Marine Strategy Framework Directive
(MSFD) (2008/56/EC).
According to the latest OSPAR annual report (OSPAR, 2015),
over 16 beach surveys have shown no improvement in litter
levels over previous years. Details of historical surveys can
be viewed on the OSPAR Marine Litter Database.6 Tackling
marine litter requires an integrated response, but key to this
will be solutions governing waste management practices.
This is covered in more detail in Chapter 6.
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