Catchment News

State of the Environment Report 2024: Water

Every four years the EPA publishes its flagship State of the Environment report. Progress, economic prosperity, and health all threatened unless Ireland increases the scale, pace, and ambition of environmental action. The conclusions and key messages from the State of the Environment 2024 Water chapter are below.

State of the Environment 2024 – Water: Conclusions

Almost half of our surface waters, rivers, lakes, estuaries and coastal waters and their associated ecosystems are degraded and are not achieving their water quality objectives. While significant investment and additional resources have been committed to address water quality issues in recent years, based on current and planned measures we will not achieve our legally binding water quality objectives by 2027. There are a number of key gaps that need to be addressed to prevent further decline and to start to see a significant scale of improvement in water quality. In addition, climate change is impacting, and will continue to impact, water resources and water quality management.

The main factor impacting water quality is excessive concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus.

Nitrate concentrations are too high in 40% of river sites and in 20% of estuarine and coastal water bodies nationally. The agricultural sector is responsible for more than 85% of the total nitrogen losses to water in certain catchments in the south and south-east. Phosphate concentrations are too high in 28% of rivers and 36% of lakes. Water quality is a local issue. Unless measures are targeted to the specific problem and area where the measure is needed they will not deliver improvements. This is a key gap, particularly among agricultural measures, which are often at the national scale, voluntary or delivered through specific projects and not sustained.

We will not achieve our water quality outcomes without effective implementation of and compliance with environmental legislation.

With the exception of hydromorphology, there is a wide range of legislative instruments in place to mitigate the impacts of various pressures on water quality. However, there is a significant gap in implementation in terms of achieving compliance. Agricultural inspections are identifying significant levels of non-compliance with the Good Agricultural Practice Regulations, and the EPA has highlighted the need for improvements in local authority performance with respect to agricultural inspections. Measures to address hydromorphology are limited. The abstraction regime is not yet in place and there is no effective control of activities that can impact hydromorphology, including from land drainage works at the farm level to large arterial drainage and flood mitigation schemes.

A range of other pressures, such as septic tanks, regulated discharges to water and impacts from forestry and illegal peat extraction and drainage, could be addressed through effective implementation and enforcement of existing legislation

There is an urgent need to improve the overall governance and accountability of water management in Ireland.

A new three-tier structure to significantly improve the governance of water management in Ireland was introduced in the second cycle of the RBMP. While this resulted in some improvements, particularly in engagement and coordination among key stakeholders and implementing bodies, the tiers themselves were not operating as they should, and there were gaps in overall accountability and the tracking and reporting of measures and progress. The Water Action Plan was published in September 2024. While some of the high level measures in the plan have already commenced, the delay in finalising and adopting the overall plan created a national water policy vacuum that limited progress to date in the restoration and protection of water quality.

Climate change is impacting, and will continue to impact, water quality and water services.

The effects of climate change are already being felt in Ireland. The management of water resources, historically not a major issue in Ireland, will become increasingly important to meet our population growth, industry and food production needs. Ensuring good water quality is a key measure to ensure resilience in conditions of low flow and higher temperatures. Climate change adaptation to protect water quality and water services is not as well progressed and integrated as it needs to be.

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State of the Environment 2024 – Water: Key Messages

• There needs to be immediate, substantial and sustained reductions in nitrogen pollution, especially in catchments of concern in the south and south-east, to prevent any further deterioration in the quality of our estuaries and coastal waters. Targeted measures to reduce phosphate run-off could deliver significant improvements in inland waters and offer multiple benefits for climate and biodiversity.
• We need to see full implementation of existing environmental legislation and high compliance rates across all regulated activities. A regulatory regime to address activities that impact hydromorphology is also required. All measures must be sufficiently targeted to the water quality issue and location to ensure that they deliver improvements.
• Water governance structures need to be reviewed to ensure that they operate effectively. Detailed tracking and reporting of measures in Ireland’s Water Action Plan 2024 is required to improve accountability among implementing bodies, public access to information and, ultimately, Ireland’s water quality.
• It is essential to build climate resilience into water quality management and into water services. Plans – such as the Water Action Plan, the Water Quality and Water Services Climate Adaptation Plan, and Uisce Éireann’s National Water Resources Plan – are key to identifying risks and adaptation measures.

Learn more:

The State of the Environment Water 2024 Water chapter is available here: https://www.epa.ie/publications/monitoring–assessment/assessment/state-of-the-environment/irelands-state-of-the-environment-report-2024—chapter-8—water.php