Northern Ireland River Water Quality Monitoring: Raw pH Data 1990-2018

Northern Ireland's Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) provides raw water quality measurements from river monitoring sites, collected from 1990 to 2018. This dataset supports the Water Framework Directive (WFD) by containing unprocessed results for parameters like pH, but it lacks Limits of Detection and may include erroneous entries. It is the first in a series of open water data sets from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA).

Use Cases

• Tracking long-term pH trends in Northern Irish rivers from 1990 to 2018.
• Providing raw input data for calculating Water Framework Directive ecological status, noting that altitude and alkalinity affect some parameters.
• Identifying potential sampling errors or contamination events flagged by results several orders of magnitude above expected values.
• Supporting public involvement in water quality regulation as encouraged by the transposed WFD regulations.

Strengths

• Covers a 28-year time range from 1990 to 2018.
• Explicitly published as part of a government open data initiative, hosted on multiple platforms.
• Directly supports a major regulatory framework (the EU Water Framework Directive).

Limitations

• Metadata completeness is medium; specific column names, row counts, and file sizes are not provided across sources.
• Data is raw and unprocessed, containing potential errors from typos or contamination that require expert handling.
• Lacks critical metadata for WFD calculations, such as Limits of Detection and Limit of Quantitation.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

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

Time Range

1990 to 2018

Freshness

Last updated on 2026-04 15 (uk_data platform).

Geography

Northern Ireland (rivers, lakes, transitional waters, and coastal waters).