A new report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has warned that nitrate concentrations remain “too high” in rivers, groundwater and estuaries in the south east and along the southern seaboard.
It also shows that over the 12 months from 2022 to 2023, there has been “an increase” in groundwater nitrate concentrations.
According to the EPA this report provides an update on the results of water quality monitoring to “support the assessment of the impact of the nitrates derogation on Irish waters” as required under the European Union’s Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) for the Protection of Waters.
The agency said that it had used phosphorus and nitrate data from the national water quality monitoring programme for groundwater, rivers, lakes, estuarine and coastal waters to prepare the report.
“The assessment is based on data from monitoring stations that are representative of the impact of agriculture on water quality, i.e., monitoring stations that also reflect the impacts of predominantly urban or industrial pressures are not included,” the EPA stated.
EPA
“Nationally, there has been an increase in nitrate concentrations in groundwater, with little change in riverine nitrate concentrations, over the 12 months from 2022 to 2023,” the EPA outlined.
The EPA also detailed that phosphorus concentrations are “above the good status environmental quality standard” in 22% of rivers, typically in areas associated with poorly draining soils.
“Elevated phosphorus concentrations are impacting the ecological health of these rivers and may be contributing to nutrient enrichment in the downstream estuaries,” it warned.
The agency also highlighted in the new report that nutrient losses from agriculture are one of the “significant drivers” for waters not meeting their environmental objectives under the Water Framework Directive (WFD).
The EPA outline the report: “Overall, to deliver improvements in ecological status and to achieve the WFD objectives, nutrient losses to water need to reduce.
“Mitigation measures need to be targeted to the water quality issues and physical settings where they occur, i.e. the critical source areas within sub-catchments”.
It said that within a catchment, the critical source areas for phosphorus and nitrate frequently occur in different locations because they are driven by the hydrological properties of the soils.
“Measures to reduce phosphorus losses need to focus on breaking the pathway for run off over land and measures to reduce nitrogen losses need to focus on reducing the nitrogen surplus.” the EPA said.