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Targets for improving water quality in hundreds of rivers and lakes in Northern Ireland by 2027 will not be met, according to auditors.
The report, carried out by the Northern Ireland Audit Office, found that the biggest pressures were agriculture and pollution from water treatment works.
The Audit Office looked at the likelihood that the target for all water bodies to achieve “good ecological status” would be achieved and concluded that it would not.
In 2021, less than a third of Northern Ireland’s 450 rivers were at the required standard and there had been no improvement since 2015.
Only 14% of lakes were in good condition, a reduction from 24% in 2015.
The report said water quality in the Republic of Ireland was significantly better than in Northern Ireland.
In the Republic of Ireland almost twice as many rivers and five times as many lakes achieved a “good” or “high” ecological status in 2020.
The report notes that between 2017 and 2021 there were 373 incidents in Northern Ireland linked to agriculture that were of medium or high severity.
In 2022, a quarter of all pollution incidents came from agriculture with farm effluent mix, silage and slurry being the main culprits.
But only 1% of farms in Northern Ireland are inspected each year by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency.
The report also established that of the almost 1,500 pollution incidents linked to agriculture in 2017-2021, enforcement was taken in 343 cases or 23%.
The average reduction in farm payments for breach of cross compliance regulations was £1,643 (€1.914).
Auditors also found that rivers most heavily polluted with nutrients were in areas with the highest density of farms with a derogation which allows them to spread additional slurry, but said the correlation was not evidence of a direct link.
Auditors found that there had been 572 pollution incidents linked to Northern Ireland’s wastewater treatment infrastructure between 2017 and 2021.
Northern Ireland remains the only region in the UK where testing is still pre-announced.
Efforts to reform this were announced in 2016 but will not take effect until 2027 at the earliest.
Northern Ireland Water is government owned and funded from the Stormont budget. It treats 362 million litres of wastewater every day.
It has estimated that it needs £2.1 billion (€2.4 billion) of capital investment between now and 2027 and would need to see that level of investment in future decades to address problems with its ageing water and sewerage systems.
The target for all Northern Ireland’s water bodies to reach good or high ecological status by 2027 comes from the EU Water Framework Directive which was transposed into domestic regulations in 2003.
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