River Water Quality Monitoring 1990 to 2018: Raw Data from Northern Ireland

1990 to 2018 raw data from river and lake monitoring sites in Northern Ireland, collected under the Water Framework Directive. The dataset includes measurements for biological quality, hydromorphology, and physico-chemical properties like temperature and nutrients. It is provided in an unprocessed state and may contain erroneous values from sampling or contamination.

Use Cases

• Assessing long-term trends in physico-chemical parameters like temperature and nutrient conditions.
• Supporting status calculations for biological quality elements (fish, invertebrates, flora).
• Geospatial analysis of water quality across rivers, lakes, and coastal waters in Northern Ireland.
• Researching the impact of altitude and alkalinity on regulatory status assessments.

Strengths

• Covers a 28-year time range from 1990 to 2018.
• Released as part of a government open data initiative under the OGL-UK-3.0 license.
• Includes data for multiple water body types: rivers, lakes, transitional, and coastal waters.

Limitations

• Metadata completeness is medium; specific column names and row counts are not provided.
• Data is raw and unprocessed, containing potential errors from typos or contamination that require expert handling.
• Does not include Limits of Detection or Quantitation needed for formal WFD status calculations.

Provenance

Source

OpenDataNI / DAERA-NI (Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs - Northern Ireland)

Collection Method

Monitoring from sites including those designated under the Water Framework Directive.

Time Range

1990 to 2018

Freshness

2026-04-15 14:19:55.616359

Geography

Northern Ireland