It won’t come as a surprise, but Ireland is “likely to fail” to reach its objective in the Water Framework Directive to have all water bodies achieve “good” status by 2027.

Daire O’hUallacháin of Teagasc outlined that with only 50-55% of rivers achieving good-quality status at present, the task would be great.

O’hUallacháin was speaking at one of Teagasc’s Land Use webinars and noted that nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment were the main contributors to the decline in water quality. While he noted that agriculture puts the greatest amount of pressure on water quality, this is not surprising as it accounts for 70% of the land area.

Forestry was outlined as another contributor to poor water quality.

The Teagasc researcher explained that if forestry is not planted correctly, even a forest planted for 40 years can still significantly contribute to sediment loss.

Integrated and sustainable approach

He noted that land use and water quality were integrated and that all land use types can have positive and negative effects on water quality.

Integrated sustainable food production systems should produce food, improve water quality, increase biodiversity and store carbon all at the same time.

Hedgerows can improve water quality

The researcher outlined that in Ireland, the density of landscape features such as hedgerows, coupled with the small field sizes, has resulted in our agricultural systems exporting less sediment into our water bodies than other EU member states.

Aside from hedgerows, O’hUallacháin outlined riparian margins and drainage ditches as two important habitat types in agriculture with regards to water quality. These habitat types are known as valued habitats and are protected by policy.

Across farming systems, valued habitats take up the same area (approximately 5% of the farm area) on intensive, intermediate and extensive farms, showing how policy can affect the maintenance of these habitats.

Optional habitats are those that are incentivised under environmental schemes. These habitats are least popular on intensive farms. Undervalued or ignored habitats are very common on extensive farms.

Ó hÚallacháin pointed out that current policy has little focus on quality.

Looking at the impact policy has had on the area dedicated to valued habitats shows the potential to improve the quality of undervalued habitats, and thus, in turn, improve water quality.