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The water environment and achieving the environmental improvements

This section summarises the condition of the water environment in North Highland, the improvements we plan to achieve and the key pressures and impacts that we need to address. This information is set out in a more detailed form in the catchment level summaries that are available alongside this document on the SEPA website.

Information on individual water bodies can be accessed through the web based interactive map.

Information on the classification, pressures, objectives and measures for the Scotland river basin district, as well as detailed supplementary information on how we classify and how objectives have been set, can be found in the Scotland river basin district plan.

The current condition of the water environment

The water environment includes all rivers, lochs, estuaries, coastal waters, artificial waters (such as canals and reservoirs) and groundwater. It also includes all the wetlands that depend on surface waters or groundwater for their water needs.

The environmental quality and natural characteristics of surface waters and groundwater vary widely. To reflect this variation, SEPA has divided the water environment into 590 water bodies in North Highland (426 rivers, 5 canals, 80 lochs, 24 coastal and 10 estuarine water bodies) and 45 groundwater bodies. Classifying the condition of each water body provides a picture of where the water environment is in good condition and where improvements need to be made (see Table 2 and Map 2).

The classification of natural surface water bodies (not including groundwaters) describes by how much their condition, or status, differs from near natural conditions. Water bodies in a near natural condition are at high ecological status. Those whose ecological quality been severely damaged are at bad ecological status. The objectives of the Water Framework Directive are to improve any failing water bodies to good or high ecological status and to prevent deterioration of all water bodies. In North Highland 335 (75%) natural surface waters are at good or high ecological status.

In the North Highland area 96 (18%) surface water bodies have been substantially changed in character for important purposes such as hydropower generation, navigation, land drainage or water storage for drinking water supply. These are known as heavily modified water bodies. A further five water bodies (1%) of surface waters are artificial (comprising the Caledonian and Spynie canals). The classification of heavily modified and artificial water bodies describes their ecological potential. This is a measure of the extent to which each water body’s ecological quality has been maximised, given the limits imposed by the physical modifications necessary its use. For more information on heavily modified and artificial water bodies see Chapter 4 of the Scotland river basin management plan . In North Highland 68 (71%) heavily modified water bodies and four (80%) artificial water bodies are at good or maximum ecological potential.

The classification of groundwater describes whether or not it is polluted, and whether or not the volume of any water being abstracted from it is sustainable without significant impacts on rivers or wetlands that depend on the groundwater. Unlike the five status classes applying to surface waters, two classes – good and poor – are used to describe the status of groundwater. In North Highland, 43 (96%) groundwaters are at good status.

Map 2: Overall surface water classification for North Highland advisory group area (click for larger image)

Pressures and risks

The main reasons for not achieving good ecological status are described as pressures. The key pressures and risks affecting North Highland are:

• abstraction of water from rivers and lochs for use in hydropower generation, public water supply, arable farming and whisky production;
  
• flow regulation (changing natural flows in rivers and lochs) by hydropower generation and public water supply;
  
• alterations to beds, banks and shores (“morphology”) through coniferous forestry planting close to the bank side, channel straightening for drainage on land used for livestock and mixed farming and barriers to fish migration;
  
• nutrient enrichment from diffuse pollution (pollution coming from several dispersed sources) from arable and mixed farming, forestry and sewage disposal;
  
• the presence or risk posed by invasive non-native species.

This does not include all impacts and there are other issues that will also need to be addressed through river basin management planning. More information on the pressures, actions and targets in each catchment is included in the catchment summaries. Detailed information for each water body is available in the water body information files on the interactive map. Both are available on SEPA’s website.

Objectives for the water environment

The overall goal of the Scotland river basin district is for 97% of water bodies to be at good or high ecological status by 2027. In the North Highland area we aim to make improvements so that 98% of water bodies are in good or high ecological status by 2027.

Restoring the water environment to good ecological status will take time and therefore improvements have been prioritised over the three river basin planning cycles. For the small proportion (2%) of waters for which achieving good ecological status by 2027 is not feasible, all improvements that can reasonably be achieved will be made. Comprehensive reviews of progress will be undertaken during each period and will be reported in updates of this plan.

Table 3 describes how improvements to the water environment will be phased, while Map 3 shows the overall surface water classification for the North Highland area. The phasing has been designed so that the pace of improvement provides the time needed to develop and implement the necessary technical solutions and to make the required investments and adjustments without creating disproportionate financial burdens.

Lower (less stringent) objectives than good status

Less stringent objectives have been set for four water bodies in North Highland where we believe that ecological good status cannot be achieved even by 2027.

One water body, the Geddes Burn, has a less stringent objective of moderate ecological status because it is affected by the presence of North American signal crayfish, a non-native invasive species. It is currently infeasible to remove established populations of North American signal crayfish, or to mitigate their impacts sufficiently in order to enable good ecological status to be achieved.

Three water bodies in North Highland (the Blackwater, Rogie Burn and Sleach Water) have less stringent objectives because their water quality is affected by acidification as a result of pollution from acid deposition. The time needed for water bodies affected by acid deposition to recover is difficult to predict but, because of natural conditions, is likely to be beyond 2027.

Water bodies where deterioration of status has been permitted

Exemptions from the objective of preventing deterioration in status have been allowed on 10 water bodies in North Highland. These water bodies are on the River Glass, River E, Wester Fearn Burn and in Glendoe. Deterioration has been allowed in order to enable abstraction and impoundment of water for hydropower to benefit sustainable development. All appropriate mitigation is in place and there is not a significantly better environmental option.

The water bodies affected by the hydro-schemes in Glendoe and on the River E have subsequently been designated as heavily modified and are judged to be at good ecological potential.

There are five rivers in the River Ness catchment, all draining into lochs that are used for hydropower (Lochs Cluanie, Loyne and Quoich), that have been classified as poor ecological status because dams on the lochs in question have no provision for fish passage. However, the lochs are designated as heavily modified water bodies (HMWBs) and are therefore deemed to be at good ecological potential because there is negligible habitat for migratory fish upstream of the dams and therefore no requirement for the provision of fish passage. This apparent contradiction arises because the rivers draining into the lochs are not designated as HMWBs, so there is currently no mechanism to classify them as having good ecological potential. SEPA will review the situation and either override the poor ecological status classifications or consider whether the rivers should be designated as HMWBs and classified as being at good ecological potential. In the meantime, no measures are proposed to provide fish passage, so the objectives for the rivers have been left at poor ecological status through to 2027.

Map 3: Phased improvements in surface water quality over the three planning cycles (click for larger image)

Protected area objectives

Many water bodies are also part of protected areas identified as requiring special protection because of their sensitivity to pollution or their particular economic, social or environmental importance. A large proportion of North Highland has been designated as a protected area for waters that:

• are used for drinking water supply;
  
• support economically significant shellfish or freshwater fish stocks;
  
• are designated as bathing waters;
  
• support habitats or species of international conservation importance;
  
• are sensitive to nutrient enrichment.

The objectives for these include any additional protection needed to achieve the purposes for which the protected area was established.

In North Highland, many protected areas are already achieving the goals for which they were established; the objective for these areas is to protect them from deterioration. Further environmental improvements are needed for other areas that are currently not achieving their objectives – planned improvements to such protected areas are summarised in Table 4.

In addition:

• in 2008 all four shellfish waters in North Highland met the required mandatory values (Cromarty Bay, Dornoch Firth, Loch Eriboll and Kyle of Tongue);
  
• all of the 82 currently designated Drinking Water Protected Areas in North Highland (which includes the 45 groundwaters) are meeting their current standards with none at risk of deterioration. Drinking Water Protected Areas are currently under review and any changes to designations will be reflected in updates of this plan. In North Highland there are two groundwaters that are poor status, both of which are also Drinking Water Protected Areas. However, the reason they are poor status (localised abstraction) has no impact on the provision of drinking water;
  
• North Highland has five Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive Sensitive Areas (Achairn Burn, Easter Fearn Burn, Loch More, Murkle Burn and River Lossie). All of the waste water discharges affecting these have the appropriate level of treatment;
  
• part of the area designated as the Moray, Aberdeenshire/Banff and Buchan Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ) falls within the North Highland area (and is shared with the North East Scotland area). An action programme has been established for this NVZ aiming to reduce water pollution caused or induced by nitrates from agricultural sources and to prevent further such pollution;
  
• mandatory values were achieved for all the 29 waters designated for freshwater fish in North Highland.

For more information on protected areas, see Chapter 5 of the Scotland river basin management plan .

1. Bodies of groundwater are classed as either good status or poor status.
   
2. Artificial water bodies are man-made water bodies, such as many canals.