Northern Ireland Lake Water Bodies Under the Water Framework Directive

Lake Water Bodies is a dataset from the Government Digital Service under the EU open data platform. It contains geospatial data for lakes in Northern Ireland larger than 50 hectares, which are monitored and managed under the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The data has been reported to the EU since 2016.

Use Cases

• Mapping lake locations and boundaries based on the geospatial data.
• Monitoring changes in water quality and aquatic ecosystems over time as required by the WFD.
• Assessing the impact of environmental management programs on lakes greater than 50 hectares.
• Reporting on hydrological unit status to EU authorities.

Strengths

• Data is collected under a formal legislative framework (the Water Framework Directive).
• Includes a specific size threshold, covering lakes greater than 50 hectares.
• Available in multiple geospatial formats (KML, ESRI SHAPE, GEOJSON).
• Has a clear open license (Open Government Licence).

Limitations

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

Provenance

Source

Government Digital Service

Collection Method

Monitoring and reporting under the Water Framework Directive legislation.

Time Range

Reporting started from 2016.

Freshness

Data has been reported since 2016, but the last update date is unknown.

Geography

Northern Ireland