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

Ireland’s Environment – An Integrated Assessment 2020 5. Outlook Significant Progress Is Needed to Reach the Environmental Objectives and Legal Requirements of the Water Framework Directive While overall water quality has deteriorated nationally, in the most recent assessment undertaken by the EPA there were some positive signs in the prioritised areas for action. The river basin management planning process identified 1460 water bodies as being at risk of not meeting their water quality objectives because of the damage being caused by significant pressures. The most recent assessment of the condition of these waters shows that 16.5 per cent (242) of these water bodies are now meeting their environmental objectives and are no longer considered to be at risk (EPA, 2019a). However, the significant proportion of water bodies still at risk highlights the magnitude of the challenge that remains (Figure 7.13). While overall water quality deteriorated nationally in the most recent assessment undertaken by the EPA (EPA, 2019a) there was an overall net improvement in river water quality in the PAAs in the RBMP. This suggests that when action is taken to improve water quality it delivers results. The current plan runs to 2021, so there will be another year’s worth of monitoring data to determine the overall impact of these measures in this second RBMP cycle. Many of these improvements have been achieved as a result of the ongoing efforts of local authorities and other public bodies in these areas. Further improvements are expected as the LAWPRO and ASSAP programmes mature. The challenge now must be to learn from the successes seen in PAAs and apply them nationally to reverse the negative trends we are seeing in water quality. We must also ensure that the knowledge gathered in water-related research projects and EIPs, as outlined above, is used more widely to provide solutions to water quality problems and to inform policy development in this area. Figure 7.13  Progress made in each sector since 2016 in addressing the significant pressures on Ireland’s aquatic environment (Source: EPA) Achieved Objective Unknown Did Not Achieve Objective Agriculture Hydro- morphology Urban waste- water Forestry Other Domestic waste- water Urban run-off Peat Industry Mines and quarries 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 2,069 186