Groundwater Drinking Water Protected Areas (DWPAs): Northern Ireland 2016

Groundwater Drinking Water Protected Areas (DWPAs) were submitted for the Water Framework Directive 2nd cycle reporting in 2016. The dataset defines areas in Northern Ireland where groundwater is or can be abstracted for public or private drinking water supplies and for direct inclusion in food preparation. Its creation by the NIEA Land & Groundwater team supports regulatory compliance and environmental management.

Use Cases

• Mapping regulatory compliance zones for the EU Water Framework Directive based on the defined protected area extents.
• Planning groundwater resource management and abstraction licensing using the delineated drinking water source areas.
• Assessing environmental risk to public water supplies by analyzing the location and boundaries of protected groundwater zones.

Strengths

• Created by the authoritative environmental agency (NIEA Land & Groundwater team) for regulatory reporting.
• Specifically tied to a major EU environmental directive (Water Framework Directive) and its 2nd cycle reporting in 2016.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, column names, and file size are consistently reported as unknown or 'None' across all platform entries.
• The dataset's temporal relevance is limited to the 2016 reporting cycle; its current status for later WFD cycles is unclear.
• One platform entry shows a future 'last updated' date (2026-04-15), which is inconsistent and suggests a metadata error.

Provenance

Source

Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) Land & Groundwater team.

Collection Method

Created for submission as part of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) 2nd cycle reporting.

Time Range

2016

Freshness

2026-04-15 14:20:43.690083 (Note: This is a future date and likely a metadata error; the core data is from 2016.)

Geography

Northern Ireland