River Water Quality Monitoring 1990 to 2018: Alkalinity and Raw Parameters

Raw water quality monitoring data from Northern Ireland's river and lake sites, collected under the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) from 1990 to 2018. The dataset includes measurements for biological, hydromorphological, and physico-chemical parameters like alkalinity, temperature, oxygenation, and nutrients. It is the first in a series of open water data releases from the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA).

Use Cases

• Calculating Water Framework Directive status for rivers and lakes based on biological, hydromorphological, and physico-chemical parameters.
• Analyzing long-term trends in water quality indicators like alkalinity, nutrients, and oxygenation from 1990 to 2018.
• Identifying potential data anomalies or contamination events flagged as erroneous results in the raw data.
• Mapping monitoring site locations and associated water quality measurements for spatial analysis.

Strengths

• Provides a 28-year time series of monitoring data from 1990 to 2018.
• Covers multiple water body types including rivers, lakes, transitional waters, and coastal waters within Northern Ireland.
• Includes data relevant to all WFD assessment criteria: biological, hydromorphological, and physico-chemical.

Limitations

• Metadata completeness is low: column names, row counts, and specific file sizes are not provided across all sources.
• The data is raw and unprocessed, containing potential errors from typos, sampling, or contamination that require validation.
• Critical metadata for WFD calculations, such as Limits of Detection and altitude, are explicitly noted as missing.

Provenance

Source

Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) / Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA)

Collection Method

Monitoring from river and lake sites under Water Framework Directive regulations.

Time Range

1990 to 2018

Freshness

2026-04-15 14:21:09.230981

Geography

Northern Ireland