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The water environment and achieving the environmental improvements

This section summarises the condition of the water environment in the West Highland area, the improvements we plan to achieve and the key pressures and impacts we need to address. This information is included in a more detailed form in the catchment 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 on SEPA’s website.

Information on the classification system, 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 in the West Highland area vary widely. To reflect this variation, SEPA has divided the water environment into 598 water bodies (286 rivers, 88 lochs, 203 coastal, no estuarine water bodies) and 21 groundwater bodies. Classifying the condition (ecological status) 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 1 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. For surface water bodies, ecological status is divided into five classes: high, good, moderate, poor and bad. This encompasses the spectrum from water bodies in a near natural condition which are at high ecological status to those whose ecological quality have been severely damaged and which 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 the West Highland area 514 (92%) natural surface waters are at good or high ecological status. The West Highland area has 228 (38%) water bodies at high ecological status, the highest proportion of all the advisory group areas in Scotland.

Classification assesses the ecological status of all water bodies over a certain size (rivers with a catchment area of more than 10 km² and lochs which have a surface area greater than 0.5 km²) and all estuaries and coastal water bodies. Rivers and lochs smaller than the size threshold (small water bodies) are not classified. However, actions that partners are taking to protect or improve any aspect of the water environment are of interest to the Area Advisory Group.

In the West Highland area, 514 (92%) natural surface waters are at good or high ecological status or potential and all 21 groundwaters are at good status. It also has a large number of protected areas, of which a high proportion are meeting their required standards. 

In the West Highland area,18 (3%) 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 designated as heavily modified water bodies. One further water body (<1%), the Benbecula Main Drain, is artificial. 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  (583kb). In the West Highland area, 16 (89%) heavily modified water bodies and the Benbecula Main Drain 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 resulting in significant impacts on rivers or wetlands that depend on the groundwater. Unlike the five status classes applying to surface waters, two classes are used to describe the status of groundwater: good and poor. In the West Highland area all 21 ground waters are at good status.

Map 2: Overall surface water classification for the West 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 the West Highland area are:

• abstraction of water from rivers and lochs for use in hydropower generation and public water supply;
• flow regulation (changing the natural flows in rivers and lochs) by hydropower generation and public water supply;
• alterations to beds, banks and shores (“morphology”) and barriers to fish passage from a number of activities including hydropower generation, aquaculture, road transport, public water supply, farming, commercial fishing and historical engineering;
• nutrient enrichment from diffuse pollution (pollution coming from several dispersed sources) from livestock and mixed farming and sewage disposal;
• point source pollution from aquaculture;
• the presence, or the risk posed by introduction of, invasive non-native species.

This assessment has mainly been based on evaluating condition against standards to give a broad understanding of the main pressures across the area. There may be cases, in particular for diffuse source pollution, where there are several similar pressures on one water body and some source apportionment work is required to establish the main source. This assessment 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.

Objectives for the water environment

The vast majority of the West Highland area’s water environment is at good or high ecological status, as detailed in Table 2. The objectives of the Water Framework Directive are to restore the water environment where it is currently less than good ecological status or potential and to ensure that there is no deterioration of any water bodies.  

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 West Highland area we aim to make improvements so that 588 (99%) water bodies are at good or high ecological status by 2027.

Restoring the water environment to good ecological status will take time so improvements have therefore been prioritised over the three river basin planning cycles. For the small proportion (1%) of waters for which achieving good ecological status by 2027 is not feasible, our aim is that all reasonably achieveable improvements will be made. Comprehensive progress reviews 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 shows the overall surface water classification for the West 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 ecological status

Less stringent objectives have been set for one water body in West Highland where we believe that good ecological status cannot be achieved even by 2027. The Abhainn Ruadh has less stringent objectives because its 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

We have allowed exemptions from the objective of preventing deterioration in status for three rivers in the West Highland area. Deterioration from good to poor ecological status has been permitted on the Allt a Chonais, and from moderate to poor ecological status on the River Lael. This is to enable abstraction and impoundment of water for hydropower to benefit sustainable development. Appropriate mitigation is in place on both rivers, with the protection of river flows to prevent loss of habitat and provision of higher flows to facilitate fish movements. In both cases, no significantly better environmental option has been identified.

Deterioration from good to moderate ecological status has been permitted on the Hamara River to enable abstraction and impoundment for public drinking water supply for the benefits to human health. Having evaluated the benefits of the proposal to sustainable development as well as the benefits of preventing status deterioration, SEPA considered that:

• all practicable steps had been taken to mitigate the adverse impacts;
• the benefits to human health outweighed the adverse impacts;
• the beneficial objectives of the scheme could not be achieved by other means;
• the application of an exemption from WFD objectives would be consistent with the implementation of other EU environmental legislation.

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 the West Highland area has been designated as a protected area for waters that:

• are used for drinking water supply;
• support economically significant shellfish (designated shellfish waters) 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 the West Highland area, many protected areas are already achieving the goals for which they were established; the objective for such 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:

• Achmelvich, the only designated bathing water in West Highland, was classified as excellent in 2008;
• all 118 currently designated drinking water protected areas in the West Highland area (which includes the 21 groundwaters) are meeting appropriate 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;
• mandatory water quality standards were achieved for all 14 waters designated for freshwater fish in the West Highland area.

Shellfish growing waters and diffuse pollution

In most cases the reasons for the current shellfish waters failures are not clear. Further research, including a review of the Food Standards Agency Sanitary Surveys and possibly source tracking studies, is required to establish the pressures on these protected areas and therefore the measures required to improve and allow them to achieve the required standards. This work will be done as part of the planned diffuse pollution actions planned which are outlined below.

Further information on protected areas is available in Chapter 5 of the Scotland river basin management plan  (1.0mb) and in the West Highland catchment summaries.

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.