EPA - Ireland's Environment, An Integrated Assessment - 2020

Ireland’s Environment – An Integrated Assessment 2020 The objective set out in the RBMP is to deliver water quality improvements (e.g. a change in nutrient trends) in 726 water bodies located within the 190 PAAs and for 152 of these to have improved sufficiently to achieve good or high ecological status. The RBMP envisages that water bodies outside PAAs will benefit from existing and newly introduced measures such as the adoption of good agricultural practices and the provision of new and improved municipal wastewater treatment infrastructure. Figure 7.11  Location of the areas for action prioritised in Ireland’s River Basin Management Plan 2018-2021 (Source: EPA) The Blue Dot Catchments Programme – Protecting our High status Waters The Blue Dot Catchments Programme was established to improve the protection and restoration of high status water bodies whose status is declining more than that of other water bodies. One of the most concerning water quality trends in recent years has been the continued loss of the highest quality (best of the best) river sites, which have suffered a tenfold decline since the late 1980s. These near-pristine unpolluted waters are important reservoirs of aquatic biodiversity and provide an important refuge for species sensitive to pollution. Over half are failing to meet their high status objective and over one-fifth of high status objective river water bodies have declined since 2015 (EPA, 2019a). The picture is even worse for lake and estuarine waters with one-quarter of high status objective lakes and just under half of high status objective estuaries having declined in status since 2015. The level of decline in high status objective water bodies is much greater than the 4.4 per cent decline in status seen nationally across all water bodies. The Blue Dot Catchments Programme was established in 2019 under the RBMP specifically to improve the protection and restoration of these precious water bodies. A significant collaborative effort is now required from all stakeholders to ensure that the loss of these high status waters is halted and, where possible, reversed. A work programme has been developed by the newly established Blue Dot Catchments Programme to begin the process of developing strengthened actions in these catchments. The work of LAWPRO in PAAs will guide the level of local catchment assessment and actions required in these catchments. The recently approved Water of Life integrated project, co-funded by the Irish Government and the European Commission, aims to support the implementation of measures to protect and enhance high status waters and thus support the work of the Blue Dot Catchments Programme. The project will act as a catchment- scale demonstration project to test and validate the effectiveness of implementing locally tailored, best practice measures across a range of land uses typically seen in the catchments of high status waters. 180