A water wake-up call

It will be hard for many people to fathom that in Scotland, at the start of May, we are being warned to conserve water and start treating it as a ‘‘precious’’ resource.

And yet it is true, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency really has issued an ‘‘early warning’’ of potential shortages over the next few months.

It did so after dry weather in March and April saw water levels in reservoirs and lochs fall, with river flows ‘‘particularly low for this time of year’’.

ScottishWater has already asked people to collect rainwater for plants and take shorter showers.

‘‘Due to climate change, it is becoming increasingly important that we treat water as a precious resource by reducing what we waste and that everyone . . . uses water efficiently and wisely,’’ it said.

Scottishweather may have been maligned by some as permanently bleak, but this is a country where rain looms large in our culture, in songs by Scottish bands such as Why Does It Always Rain On Me by Travis and Happy When It Rains by the Jesus and Mary Chain.

But then, these are songs from a different time and ones that future generations, ever more careful to preserve water, may come to regard with amix of wonder and dismay at how little we did to stop climate change from getting so badly out of hand.