A national macroinvertebrate dataset collected for the biomonitoring of Ireland’s river network, 2007–2018
— Read on http://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-020-00618-8
There are 3,192 river water bodies in Ireland and the national river monitoring program is designed to obtain sufficiently representative information to assign a status to each of these water bodies.
All the major rivers and their significant tributaries are included in the monitoring program
The surveys presently combine general chemical and biological assessments with approximately 13,200 km of river channel surveyed over a 3-year cycle
The most commonly encountered forms of pollution in rivers are eutrophication and organic pollution.
Less frequently encountered are non-organic types of pollution such as toxic pollution (e.g. by sheep treatment or industrial chemicals), siltation (e.g. arising from cattle access over-grazing, drainage, quarrying or stone-cutting operations) and acidification in sensitive afforested areas.