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SDG 14

Life Below Water

Conserve and sustainably use the oceans and marine resources.

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Ireland: Significant challenges remain· Moderately improving

Official figures from the Sustainable Development Report 2026 (Sachs, Lafortune, Fuller, Iablonovski — SDSN), shown as published — only the layout is ours. The report is licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. This site is not affiliated with or endorsed by SDSN. Imported from their published database on 2026-09-21.

What this goal covers

  • •Prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution, especially from land-based sources
  • •Sustainably manage and protect marine and coastal ecosystems
  • •Minimise the impacts of ocean acidification

Simplified from the UN's official targets for this goal.

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🇮🇪 Across Ireland

Goal 14 score, by country

Ireland Other countries
1Belgium
100/100
2Czechia
100/100
3Austria
99.9/100
4Netherlands
99.9/100
5Denmark
99.1/100
···
33Ireland
80.4/100
···
167=Djibouti
23.1/100
167=Syrian Arab Republic
23.1/100
168Eritrea
20.8/100
169Libya
19.3/100
170Micronesia, Fed. Sts.
18.8/100

Ireland is in rank group 33 of 170 (out of 171 countries with a score for this goal).

What makes up Ireland's score (80 out of 100)

The average of 5 indicator scores, one per official target area. Each bar scores Ireland from 0 to 100 on that indicator: the best 10% of countries count as 100, the worst 5% as 0.

  • 14.b Small-scale fishers · Legal protection of small-scale fishers5 score (2026)
    100
  • 14.6 Fisheries rules · Action on illegal fishing (international instruments)5 score (2026)
    100
  • 14.1 Marine pollution · Beach litter3 items per 100 m² (2024)
    100
  • 14.5 Marine biodiversity · Marine key biodiversity areas covered by protection83% (2025)
    93
  • 14.5 Marine protection · Marine protected areas2.4% of territorial waters (2025)
    8

Not covered: Fish-stock sustainability (14.4) is only reported for ocean regions, not countries; landlocked countries have no marine data.

Simplified score, may contain errors. See how it's built

Limitation: Landlocked countries have no score, and fish-stock health is only reported by ocean region. The score rests on protected areas, biodiversity protection, policy scores and beach litter.

Chart data: World Bank Open Data (CC BY 4.0) and the UN SDG Global Database (UNdata terms). Each goal score (0–100, 100 = best) averages a country's scores on several official indicators, one per main target area of the goal (5 for this goal). Each indicator is scored against a range set by the data: the best 10% of countries count as 100, the worst 5% as 0. Latest value per country since 2010; fetched 2026-09-22. The scores are calculated by this site; the underlying values are the sources', unchanged. Not covered: Fish-stock sustainability (14.4) is only reported for ocean regions, not countries; landlocked countries have no marine data. Limitation: Landlocked countries have no score, and fish-stock health is only reported by ocean region. The score rests on protected areas, biodiversity protection, policy scores and beach litter. How the scores are built →

County-level data isn't published for this goal yet — Ireland's CSO currently only breaks a handful of SDG indicators down by county.

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