River Water Quality Monitoring: Dissolved Zinc in Northern Ireland

Raw monitoring data for dissolved zinc from river and lake sites in Northern Ireland, collected for Water Framework Directive (WFD) compliance from 1990 to 2018. The dataset likely contains measurements of physico-chemical, biological, and hydromorphological parameters used to assess ecological and chemical status. It is the first in a series of water data sets released as open data by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA).

Use Cases

• Assessing long-term trends in dissolved zinc contamination based on raw monitoring site data.
• Calculating Water Framework Directive status classifications for rivers and lakes using physico-chemical parameters.
• Identifying potential sampling errors or contamination events flagged as outliers in the raw data.
• Correlating water quality parameters with biological quality indicators like fish and invertebrate data.

Strengths

• Provides a 28-year time series of monitoring data from 1990 to 2018.
• Released as part of a government open data initiative under the Open Government Licence.
• Covers multiple water body types including rivers, lakes, transitional, and coastal waters.

Limitations

• Metadata is incomplete: row counts, column names, and specific file sizes are not provided across all sources.
• Data is raw and unprocessed, containing potential errors from typos, sampling, or contamination that require expert validation.
• Lacks Limits of Detection and Quantitation, which are necessary for accurate WFD status calculations.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Monitoring at river and lake sites for Water Framework Directive compliance.

Time Range

1990 to 2018

Freshness

2026-04-15 14:20:03.059705

Geography

Northern Ireland