River Water Quality Monitoring 1990 to 2018 - Ammonia

Raw data from Northern Ireland's river monitoring sites, collected under the European Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC), spans nearly three decades from 1990 to 2018. This unprocessed dataset includes measurements for parameters like ammonia and requires caution as it lacks Limits of Detection and may contain erroneous values from sampling errors or contamination. Its release represents the first in a series of open water data sets from the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA).

Use Cases

• Analyzing long-term trends in ammonia concentrations across Northern Irish rivers from 1990 to 2018.
• Assessing raw physico-chemical data (e.g., temperature, oxygenation, nutrients) for preliminary water quality screening.
• Identifying potential data anomalies or contamination events flagged as 'several orders of magnitude above expected values'.
• Supporting public involvement in water management by providing transparent, raw monitoring data as required by regulation.

Strengths

• Provides a 29-year time series (1990-2018) of water quality monitoring.
• Covers multiple water body types: rivers, lakes, transitional waters, and coastal waters within Northern Ireland.
• Released under the Open Government Licence (OGL-UK-3.0), facilitating reuse.

Limitations

• Metadata completeness is low: row counts, column names, and specific file sizes are unknown across all sources.
• Data is explicitly raw and unprocessed, lacking Limits of Detection/Quantitation and containing potential errors, making it unsuitable for direct status assessment.
• One source lists a last updated date of 2026-04-15, which is a future date and suggests a metadata conflict or error.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Monitoring at river sites, likely including Water Framework Directive monitoring sites.

Time Range

1990 to 2018

Freshness

2026-04-15 14:20:37.294259

Geography

Northern Ireland