Taking a holistic approach to managing our waters
THE EU Water Framework Directive is an important piece of EU environmental legislation which aims to improve our water environment.
It requires governments to take a new, holistic approach to managing their waters and applies to rivers, lakes, groundwater, estuaries and coastal waters.
Member states must aim to achieve good status in all waters by 2015 and must ensure that status does not deteriorate in any waters.
In a recent report by the Environmental Protection Agency, sewage and diffuse agricultural sources were highlighted as the main threat to the quality of Ireland's waters. Measures to improve water quality are being implemented in order to achieve the targets of the Water Framework Directive (WFD).
In summary, the assessment of Ireland's water resources shows that:
* 71 per cent of river channels are at high or good status
* 44.6 per cent of lake areas monitored are at high or good status
* 64 per cent of the area of transitional and coastal waters are at high or good status, this includes all of Kerry's bathing water sites
* 85.6 per cent of the area of groundwater aquifers is at good status
Water quality in Ireland compares favourably with that in other EU countries. However, similar to many other EU countries, Ireland still faces considerable challenges in meeting the objectives of the WFD within the required timeframes.
The three main challenges for water quality management are to eliminate serious pollution associated with point sources; to tackle diffuse pollution; and to use the full range of legislative measures in an integrated way to achieve better water quality. A key aspect is that focusing measures on rivers, where monitoring has identified particular causes of pollution, will help reduce pollutant loading to lakes and coastal waters as well as improving river quality.
In addressing these challenges, improvements are also required in the governance and administrative systems for water management in Ireland to ensure that they are optimised to support the delivery of Ireland's obligations under the WFD and other water legislation.
The full report is available at www.epa.ie