Publications

The European Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) (WFD) requires the status of groundwater management units (groundwater bodies) within each river basin to be determined as ‘good’ or ‘poor’.

All groundwater bodies in Northern Ireland were classified in 2014-2015 to establish whether they are at good or poor status utilising monitoring data from the past six years (2009 to 2014).

The General Quality test’s overall aim is to assess if the impact of groundwater pollution is sufficiently widespread to compromise the use of the groundwater resource either currently or in the future.

The process of classifying Groundwater Dependant Terrestrial Ecosystems (GWDTE), as defined above, is laid out below. Explanation of the method is given below, with specific detail given to the origin and processing of data required for the implementation of the method.

The saline intrusion test assesses if an abstraction of groundwater or set of abstractions are likely leading to the intrusion of poorer quality water into a water body.

Surface Water Chemical classification checks whether chemicals, namely phosphorus, contained in the groundwater baseflow (to the surface water body) contribute to status failure of that surface water body.

The Surface Water Quantitative classification test evaluates whether an abstraction or set of abstractions are likely to be leading to a deterioration in status of a surface water body.

All groundwater bodies in Northern Ireland were classified in 2014-2015 to establish whether they are at good or poor status utilising monitoring data from the past six years (2009 to 2014).

All groundwater bodies in Northern Ireland were classified in 2014-2015 to establish whether they are at good or poor status utilising monitoring data for the past 6 years (2009 to 2014).

The criteria for delineation of surface water bodies for the Water Framework Directive are set out in Annex 2, Section 1 of the Directive. For rivers, Northern Ireland followed ‘System A’ typology as specified in Paragraph 1.2.1.

This paper describes how 2015 river continuity classification was put together. It is based on the first river basin plan cycle 575 river water body set.

The WFD recognises that some water bodies will have been changed to such a degree that they can longer be restored to their original condition without compromising their current use.

In 2009 54 river water bodies were designated as HMWBs in NI, and 1 canal was designated as an artificial water body (AWB). For the second River basin cycle several water bodies have been merged or changed.

We have examined in this second cycle review the achievement of the objectives established in the 2009 plan for 2015, and reviewed the objectives set for 2021 and 2027.

The original work to derive a river water body set for Northern Ireland was undertaken in 2003-2004. At first 719 water bodies were proposed but this was later reduced to 550.

This paper sets out the approach to designation and classification of Heavily Modified Waterbodies in the First River Basin Planning Cycle and the changes that will be made in the Second River Basin Planning Cycle.

Mechanisms that we already have for implementing water related European Directives are referred to as ‘basic measures’. This document provides a general description of the mechanisms that are currently available and how we are using them.