This week on Ours to Protect we looked at what we need to do to protect our water quality.
Did you know …….
The latest report by the Environmental Protection Agency found that nitrogen levels, mainly from fertilisers and manures from farming, increased in rivers and groundwater last year.
Phosphorus levels, mainly from agricultural runoff and wastewater discharges, are still too high in many rivers and lakes.
The water we drink today has been around in one form or another since dinosaurs roamed the Earth hundreds of millions of years ago.
Looking at photos of Earth from Space you can see that our planet has more water than land but less than 3% of all the water on Earth is freshwater.
Even then, just 1 percent of that freshwater is easily accessible, with much of it trapped in glaciers and snowfields.
And with a world population now of over 8 billion people depending on that water for life it’s more important than ever that we protect the water in our rivers and lakes and the habitats they provide for nature.
How can we help….
Protecting buffer zones near rivers and streams,
Planting trees along water courses to filter nutrient run off from farms,
Using low emission slurry spreading and protected urea in optimum weather conditions and only if the land needs it.
Protecting every small stream because they all flow into our rivers and lakes are the main ways we can make sure we have clean, safe drinking water into the future.
Useful Links
https://www.epa.ie/our-services/monitoring–assessment/assessment/irelands-environment/water/
https://www.teagasc.ie/environment/water-quality/
