Northern Ireland Lakes Greater Than 50ha Under Water Framework Directive

Northern Ireland lakes larger than 50 hectares, assessed under the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and reported to the EU from 2016. The dataset is produced by the Government Digital Service to support the monitoring and management of water bodies to prevent deterioration in quality and aquatic ecosystems. It is available in multiple geospatial formats including KML, GeoJSON, and ESRI Shapefile.

Use Cases

• Mapping lake boundaries and locations for environmental assessment based on the geospatial nature of the data.
• Analyzing water quality trends and management outcomes for lakes under WFD legislation.
• Monitoring the status of aquatic ecosystems in Northern Ireland based on the dataset's purpose of tracking water body health.

Strengths

• Includes lakes defined under EU Water Framework Directive legislation, providing a regulatory context.
• Available in multiple interoperable geospatial formats (KML, GeoJSON, ESRI Shapefile, CSV).

Limitations

• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Government Digital Service

Collection Method

Likely compiled from official monitoring and reporting programs under the Water Framework Directive.

Time Range

Reporting from 2016 onward.

Freshness

Data has been reported to the EU from 2016, but the last update date for the dataset is unknown.

Geography

Northern Ireland