Northern Ireland River Water Quality Monitoring Data 1990-2018
Updated 17d ago
11filesKML
Available on 2 platforms
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Description
Northern Ireland's raw water quality monitoring data from 1990 to 2018, collected under the Water Framework Directive (WFD). This dataset includes measurements from river, lake, transitional, and coastal water monitoring sites, covering biological, hydromorphological, and physico-chemical parameters. It is the first in a series of open water data sets released by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA).
Use Cases
Assessing long-term trends in physico-chemical properties like conductivity, temperature, and nutrient levels.
Calculating ecological status for rivers and lakes based on biological quality elements (fish, invertebrates, flora).
Identifying potential data anomalies or contamination events flagged as erroneous results in the raw data.
Supporting hydromorphological assessments of surface water bodies.
Informing public policy and regulatory reporting on achieving 'Good Ecological Status' and 'Good Chemical Status'.
Strengths
Provides a long-term time series covering nearly three decades (1990 to 2018).
Represents official regulatory monitoring data collected under the legally binding Water Framework Directive.
Is part of a planned series of open water data releases, indicating ongoing commitment.
Available in multiple formats (CSV, JSON, GeoJSON, Excel) for different analytical needs.
Limitations
Metadata is incomplete: row counts, file sizes, and specific column names are not provided across all sources.
Data is raw and unprocessed, containing potential errors from typos, sampling, or contamination that require expert review.
Critical metadata for WFD calculations (Limits of Detection, Limits of Quantitation, altitude, alkalinity) is not included in the dataset.
Provenance
Source
Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) / Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA)
Collection Method
Monitoring and sampling at designated Water Framework Directive sites.
Data is raw and cannot be used to determine official water body status without additional processing and expert knowledge of WFD calculation methods. Contact [email protected] for other related datasets.