Biological Q Results

Biological Q Results are a series of river quality data records dating back to 1971.

These records, obtained from samples taken at River Monitoring Stations, form an integral part of the analysis work carried out by the EPA under the guise of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) Monitoring Programme.

An overall river quality value (Q-Value) is assigned to the water at each river station.

nice photo
nice photo

Most recent data update

19.01.2023

What is in the download?

Files are presented as zipped excel spread-sheets.

  • • Mon_QRecords.csv
  • • QRecords_Classification.csv
  • • ReadMe.txt
  • • River Q-Values.lyr
  • • Metadata.txt

The Mon_QRecords spreadsheet contains all of the Historical Q Value data since 1971.
You can use this spread-sheet in combination with the Filter tool on EPA Maps to locate River Stations that may be of interest.


The QRecords_Classification spread-sheet contains the classification scheme applied to the river water quality results, including Status.

The River Q-Values.lyr is a symbology file, which you can use to obtain the same River Water Quality categories as is shown on EPA Map.

To maximise the benefit of this dataset please download the Biological Q Stations dataset as described in the ReadMe.txt file.
Then join the Mon_QResults table to the Biological Q Stations dataset based on 'EPALink' field in Mon_QStations and 'StationID' in Mon_QRecords.csv.

To download the latest data, visit the GeoPortal Get Data page.