Foreword

Given that the weather – especially the rain - is perhaps Scotland’s most popular topic of conversation, it’s perhaps understandable that we tend to take water for granted in Scotland. It’s easy to think that our water environment is clean and unpolluted, that water is plentiful and that it pretty much looks after itself - but it doesn’t. 

The water environment is constantly under pressure because so many of our human activities depend on it, from the lochs and landscapes that attract tourists, to industries that use water as a ‘raw material’, for meeting our energy demands and for acting, like our estuaries do, as key transport hubs. The pressures on the urban water environment, where more than 80% of Scotland’s people live and work, are especially intense.

Climate change is adding to the pressures, with trends evident in Scotland for increasing extremes of weather, and more periods when we have either too little water (droughts on the arable rich east coat) or too much (more storms and more frequent and severe floods).

This edition of SEPA View looks at the work SEPA and others are doing to make sure Scotland’s water environment is well cared for. We look, for instance, at water regulation, the impact of flooding and the emergence of the new EU Flood action Programme. We look at how river basin management plans are being developed through active local participation, and at how best practice can reduce the impact of diffuse pollution.

You’ll also find fascinating features about water resource management in a country very different from our own – Sudan, at urban drainage systems and how they have developed in Scotland over the past decade, and at SEPA’s survey vessel The Sir John Murray is improving our ability to monitor and understand the marine environment.

Scotland’s water environment is one of our nation’s most precious resources, and caring for it is a responsibility we must all take seriously. Please read on.

Coiln Bayes
Director of Environmental Protection and Improvement

SEPA