Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I would like to return to the 6% figure, where the EPA said that 6% of water courses are under pressure from water abstractions. If water is abstracted from a water body the volume of water is potentially reduced or at times of low flow 25 cu. m or more may have a greater impact than at times of higher flow. All water that gets abstracted from whatever source, ends up somewhere else, which is the discharge elements of abstractions. Whether that is the abstraction of water for cooling processes in industry that then gets discharged to a water course, which can increase water temperatures and the effects this can have, or whether it is abstractions for livestock that can end up in groundwater and as nitrates into river water, does that 6% just look at the actual act of abstraction, or does that 6% look at the entire hydrocycle of abstraction and discharge to whatever source it may be?