2005 River Water Quality Report

Background to the report

Each year we publish an interim report on the biological quality of Irish rivers. These reports give a river by river assessment of water quality. Individual annual reports cover approximately one third of the major rivers in Ireland with Q-Values indicating water quality being assigned to over 1,000 river sites each year.

Assessments of the status of individual rivers are given and the causes of pollution are also indicated. In each three-year cycle some 13,200 km of river channel is surveyed at 3,200 locations. All the rivers depicted on the Ordnance Survey River Catchment Map of Ireland are surveyed. The survey began in 1971.

Since 2003, the online version of the report includes detailed characteristics for individual catchments including area, station altitude, land use and geology.