No lake water or transitional/coastal water bodies in Northern Ireland achieved high ecological status in 2024, according to the latest water classification statics report.
The report, published by the Environment Agency and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA), compares the ecological and chemical status of surface water bodies to different time periods for both Northern Ireland and river basin districts.
In 2024, 40% or 10 transitional and coastal water bodies achieved good ecological status, meanwhile 24% or five of the 21 lake water bodies were classified as good ecological status.
Analysis of rivers performed slightly better, where 29% or 131 of the 450 river water bodies were classified as “good” or “high” ecological status. This figure includes two river water bodies which were classified as high.
New priority substances, described as “forever” chemicals by DAERA, were introduced for the first time in the chemical status in 2018.
A number of these ubiquitous, persistent, bioaccumulative, toxic (uPBT) substances are now banned or have restricted use, including widely used flame retardants and other byproducts of industrial and commercial processes.
However, their widespread use in the past has resulted in accumulation in the aquatic environment with subsequent breaching of assigned Environmental Quality Standard (EQS) values.
The uPBT substances are monitored by analysing concentrations in both the water column and in biota (animal and plant life of the region).
However, biota samples are only collected at selected surface water monitoring stations and not across the entire network.
The levels of uPBT substances has led to detection at all monitored stations and resulted in failures of all of those stations.
When excluding uPBT substances, 8% or two transitional and coastal water bodies achieved good chemical status and 92% or 23 failed to achieve good chemical status.
When excluding such substances from lake bodies, 52% or 11 bodies achieved good chemical status.
The chemical status for rivers showed more positive results, once again when excluding uPBT substances, with 85% or 383 achieving good chemical status.
