Water scarcity report - 2nd May 2024
The Tyne area in East Lothian and most of the Tweed catchment and the Ythan catchment are now in Significant Scarcity. At Significant Scarcity level, SEPA can suspend abstraction licences to protect the water environment and is taking action in affected areas.
The Upper Tweed has returned to Moderate Scarcity. The Deveron, Don, Dee, Esk, Firth of Tay, Firth of Forth and Almond catchments, on the east coastremain at Moderate scarcity.
Situation summary
The map of Scotland indicates that there is an early warning for water scarcity levels for this week in the following areas: Area 1, Area 2, Area 3, Area 4, Area 5 and Area 6
This week areas in Significant and Moderate Scarcity have mostly continued to get drier and many of the areas at risk of water scarcity have seen insufficient rainfall to reduce this risk.
The Ythan catchment, the Tyne area and the middle and lower Tweed catchment remain at Significant Scarcity.
The Upper Tweed has returned to Moderate Scarcity.
Abstraction licences in areas of Significant Scarcity have been suspended. Suspensions will be for the minimum time necessary and will be lifted as soon as possible.
A large part of the east coast, between the Deveron catchment in the north-east and the Tyne catchment in the south-east, remains at Moderate Scarcity.
In general, ground conditions in north and north-east Scotland continued to dry out this week. The Naver Group has increased to Early Warning and the Helmsdale catchment has moved to Alert due to the drier ground conditions and continued low river flows.
The Forth has recovered to Normal conditions due to recent rainfall and the associated improved ground conditions.
Heavy rainfall is expected in some areas across Scotland over the weekend, particularly the south west which may result in localised flooding issues. It may also improve water scarcity conditions but this is dependent on the extent and distribution of the rainfall.
Groundwater levels at most monitoring locations have recovered over the winter period and are normal or high for the time of year. SEPA is monitoring the situation and coordinating steps to manage water resources in line with Scotland's National Water Scarcity Plan.
Areas of significant scarcity
Significant water scarcity in the XXX area
Significant water scarcity in the Tyne area
Significant water scarcity in the Ythan area
Weather forecast
Ridge of high pressure will maintain mostly dry weather for Thursday, but this will decline on Friday as a low develops to the west of Ireland, with associated fronts bringing showery outbreaks of rain for the Hebrides, with scattered showers developing across Central and Eastern parts in the freshening southeasterly flow. The fronts will edge slowly northeast across Scotland over the weekend, bringing the risk of some heavy downpours across southwestern parts on Saturday, spreading northeast across most other parts Sunday with the largest totals on southeast facing upslopes. Another band of rain will move north across all parts on Monday followed by heavy showers.
The rainfall outlook for the August-October period suggests that across the UK average rainfall is most likely, with an equal chance of wetter-than-average and drier-than-average conditions. There is a greater chance of wetter weather towards the north-west however. There is also a relatively high chance of this period being warmer than normal.
© Crown copyright [2022], Met Office
Advice for water users
Water sources used for irrigating farm land are at risk of becoming limited in the Alert and Moderate areas. We are urging farmers in these areas, especially if taking water from burns and small rivers, to:
- Only irrigate when, and only as much as, absolutely necessary
- Make sure irrigation equipment isn’t leaking
- Reduce evaporation losses by avoiding irrigating during the hottest time of day
- Explore how you and your neighbours in the same river catchment could avoid irrigating at the same time
- Consider whether you could switch to using groundwater rather than river water if conditions worsen. If you would need a new borehole to do this, your local SEPA office will be able to help and advise
Managers of golf courses are asked to do the same.
For the most up to date advice please see our Advice for abstractors page. Water abstractors with concerns about meeting licence conditions or wishing to discuss contingency measures should get in touch at the following e-mail address:- waterscarcity@sepa.org.uk
Public water supplies are operating normally.
Water scarcity in your area
You can help us by reporting any evidence you see of water scarcity. Find out more details of information that would be useful to us and where to send it.
Supporting information
Rainfall and river flows
These maps below show rainfall and river flow relative from each rainfall monitoring station to the long-term average, for this time of year, over the last 30 days, 90 days, and 180 days.
Rainfall totals have been normal in the shorter term across most parts of the country due to recent heavy rainfall events but conditions in the longer term have been widely very dry. River flows have been lower than normal for the time of year in most areas apart from the northwest.
Soil moisture deficit
These maps show this week’s soil moisture deficit, alongside that of our previous report for comparison.
This is obtained from the Met Office Rainfall and Evaporation Calculation System (MORECS). Ground conditions have mostly returned to normal across much of the country, with the exception of parts of the north highlands and north east where quite dry conditions remain.
Natural water storage
In each river catchment there is some degree of natural water storage, which can maintain river flows even when it is not raining. This natural water storage is mainly held in lochs and groundwater. When storage has been depleted it will take a lot of rainfall for levels to recover.
The maps below show recent groundwater and loch level compared to the long-term record at each individual station. Level is reported as high or low compared to the typical (‘normal’) level range for the time of year. Level ranges are specific to each station and based on the long-term (minimum 10 years) record of mean monthly level values recorded at individual stations.
Groundwater and loch levels
Over the last month groundwater levels have recovered to normal or above at all monitoring locations and loch levels have also recovered and all monitored lochs are within the typical range or above for this time of year.
Flow, rainfall and groundwater data are accessed via SEPA’s time series data service (API). SEPA's live data are subject to ongoing quality control and periodic review.
Map copyright
- Current water scarcity levels - © SEPA. Some features of this information are based on digital spatial data lincesed from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology © NERC (CEH). Contains OS data © Crown copyrgiht (and database right).
- Areas of significant water scarcity - OS Data - © Crown Copyright - SEPA licence number 100016991 (2022)
- Rainfall, river flow, groundwater and loch levels - Base map © OpenStreetMap contributors.
- Soil moisture deficit - Data based on MORECS (Met Office © Crown Copyright). Some features of this information are based on digital spatial data licensed from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology © NERC (CEH). Contains OS data © Crown copyrgiht (and database right). Base map © OpenStreetMap contributors.