INSPIRE Water Framework Directive River Basin Districts

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) is a key initiative aimed at improving water quality throughout the EU. It applies to rivers, lakes, groundwater, and coastal waters. The Directive requires an integrated approach to managing water quality on a river basin basis; with the aim of maintaining and improving water quality. The Directive requires that management plans be prepared on a river basin basis and specifies a structured approach to developing those plans.

Cycle 2 identified six RBDs on the island of Ireland. Two of these are shared with Northern Ireland (Neagh Bann and North Western), one is wholly within the state (Ireland) and three are wholly within Northern Ireland (Neagh Bann NI, North East NI and North Western NI).

Cycle 1 identified eight river basin districts (RBDs) on the island of Ireland for the purpose of implementing the Directive. Three of these were shared with Northern Ireland (Shannon, Neagh Bann and North Western), four RBDs were wholly within the state (Eastern, South Eastern, South Western and Western) and one was wholly within Northern Ireland (North Eastern).

Development of the river basin management plans has involved a coordinated effort across a wide range of organisations, including a high level of coordination with the authorities in Northern Ireland in relation to the cross-border RBDs. A key requirement of the Directive is public participation and a number of major public consultations have contributed towards development of the plans.

Alternate title: INSPIRE WFD River Basin Districts

Date (Creation): 2003-01-31

Date (Revision): 2020-08-11

Date (Publication): 2003-01-31

Citation identifier: EPA / AM.IE.EPA.WFD_RiverBasinDistricts

Citation identifier: EPA / AM.RiverBasinDistrict

Purpose: River monitoring and water quality management for the EU Water Framework Directive.

Status: On going

Point of contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
Environmental Protection Agency		gis@epa.ie	Point of contact

Maintenance and update frequency: As needed

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

Area management/restriction/regulation zones and reporting units

INSPIRE priority data set

River basin districts (Water Framework Directive)

Spatial scope

National

General Multilingual Environmental Thesaurus - Concepts, version 4.1.3

river basin management
administrative boundary

Environmental Protection Agency

river basin district
wfd
hydrography
water quality monitoring
water protection

Place

Ireland

Specific usage: Area management/restriction/regulation zones and reporting units INSPIRE

User contact info

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
Environmental Protection Agency		gis@epa.ie	User

Access constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: no limitations to public access

Use constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: no conditions to access and use

Other constraints: CC BY 4.0

Other constraints: This layer is published under the terms of the license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). [ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ]

Spatial representation type: Vector

Denominator: 50000

Language: English

Character set: UTF8

Topic category

Environment

Unique resource identifier: EPSG:29902 (TM65 / Irish Grid))

Unique resource identifier: EPSG:4258 (ETRS89 geographical coordinates)

Distribution format

Name	Version
gml+xml	3.2

Distributor contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
Environmental Protection Agency		gis@epa.ie	Point of contact

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
OGC Web Map Service	https://www.inspire.gov.ie/geoserver/inspire_epa/wms?service=wms&version=1.3.0&request=GetCapabilities	DHLGH Ireland INSPIRE View Service WMS
ATOM Syndication Format	https://epa-inspire-atom.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/files/atomEPA_INSPIRE_Ireland.xml	DHLGH Ireland INSPIRE Download Service ATOM