Regional Water Resources Plan - Eastern and Midlands

The development of the RWRP EM allows Uisce Éireann for the first time to review water supply needs collectively for the entire Eastern and Midlands Region and across the spectrum of risk including quality, quantity, reliability and sustainability. It allows us to consider local options to resolve these needs and larger Regional Options that can address needs across multiple supplies.

As part of the RWRP EM Uisce Éireann reviewed needs across 134 water supplies and identified options to address these needs. The plan allowed us to consider local options that could resolve needs within individual supplies and regional options that could address needs across multiple supplies.

Following on from the public consultation on Phase 2 draft RWRP-EM and associated environmental reports, the submissions and observations received from public consultation have been taken into consideration, and the RWRP-EM has been updated. 

Our information brochure has more detail on the RWRP-EM and the public consultation that took place.

The RWRP-EM has now been adopted, accompanied by a Strategic Environmental Assessment Statement and an Appropriate Assessment Determination. A Consultation Report summarising feedback received during the public consultation has also been published.

The outcome of the RWRP EM includes:

• Reducing the number of Water Resource Zones in the Eastern and Midlands Region from 134 to 89.
• Development of larger interconnected Water Resource Zones for the urban areas in the region.
• Upgrades to 130 existing water treatment plants, in terms of size and barrier performance.
• Development of four new water treatment plants.
• Decommissioning 70 water treatment plants.
• Interconnecting 55 supplies via 969 kilometres of trunk mains.

Reducing leakage from the 2019 baseline of 38% of regional demand to 22% of regional demand. This represents a 45% reduction in leakage from 2019 to 2034. This is achieved through pressure management, active leakage control, find and fix and asset replacement.

The outcomes and benefits of this Regional Preferred Approach include:

Improved performance across all of the water supplies in terms of quality and quantity.
Strategic transformation from the existing fragmented supply to a more resilient and sustainable interconnected supply.

To deliver the RWRP-EM, we subdivided the region into smaller units to enable us to manage the process of identifying potential water supply solutions (options) and the selection of our Preferred Approaches to resolve our water supply and water quality deficits. These smaller units are referred to as Study Areas.

A detailed Technical Report is provided for each Study Area describing the solution types at Study Area level and providing a summary of the detailed Option and Approach Development process and resulting outcomes for each Study Area.

The Study Area technical reports are provided as appendices to the RWRP-EM document.  

The Eastern and Midlands Region comprises nine Study Areas as shown in the image below.

View Questions and Answers from Public Webinars