Water Quality in your area & accessing catchments.ie

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) operate a number of water quality monitoring programmes to assess the condition of waters in Ireland. The outcome these monitoring programmes is available to see on the EPA interactive map.The map can be accessed on the website catchments.ie

Ireland has more than 73,000 km of river channels, 12,000 lakes and 7,500 km of coastline. The quality of these waters is monitored by the EPA. Waters are assessed under the European Union Water Framework Directive (WFD) and are classified into five quality classes (status):

• High
• Good
• Moderate
• Poor
• Bad

‘High’ is when the water is not polluted at all, and ‘bad’ is when the water is most polluted.^[1]

The outcome these monitoring programmes is available to see on the EPA interactive map on www.catchments.ie. The video below shows how to use the interactive map on www.catchments.ie to find out about water quality in your area.  

For more information contact your local Community Water Officer Our Team - Local Authority Waters Programme (watersandcommunities.ie)

get more information on Water Quality Week here 

 [1] Taken from the EPA’s River, Lake & Marine Monitoring Plain English Fact Sheets Water Quality :: Environmental Protection Agency, Ireland (epa.ie)