Never mind a ban on hosepipes ...we’re facing YEARS of drought
It seems incredible, but within decades farming, fishing and even golf may be at risk as Scotland’s water supplies dry up. And, scientists warn, even your favourite dram might not be safe...
THE view across the vast upper reservoir at the head of Glen Devon was startling. Normally brimming with the fresh rains that run down from the surrounding mountains, this artificially created loch had been so starved of precipitation that it was starting to resemble little more than a muddy puddle.
Its murky depths retreated to reveal a long-abandoned farmhouse and sheep pen, submerged for much of the 65 or so years since the Perthshire glen was dammed to provide thousands of gallons of water for public consumption.
Yet, if it seems unfathomable that such an image could surface in a country as supposedly rain-sodden as ours, then perhaps the true eyebrow-raiser is that it was taken as recently as September last year, following Scotland’s second driest summer for 160 years.
While other reservoirs in the country’s extensive public supply network were able to make good the temporary shortfall at Upper Glendevon, it is becoming clear that a wider problem of water scarcity is becoming endemic in our island nation of lochs and rivers.
Indeed, Scotland has suffered from such a lack of rainfall in three out of the past four years that experts fear that countless businesses – not to mention the tens of thousands of Scots who rely on private water supplies – could face near-perennial drought-like conditions within a few short decades.
ALITTLE over a week ago, the country’s environment watchdog, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), issued its first official ‘water scarcity’ report of the year, which placed companies with licences to abstract water in the entire southern half of the country on ‘early warning’ notice over groundwater shortages.
On Thursday, Sepa further extended the early warning area to include Angus, Tay and Deeside in Aberdeenshire. With forecasters warning of a drier than usual summer again this year after winter’s hoped-for rains failed to materialise, all the signs are that the problem will get worse before it improves.
And this is not a trivial matter – like it or not, rain is the lifeblood that shapes our landscape and much of our economy. It underpins key industries, from farming, food and drink production to energy and golf. Major exporters, like whisky and salmon, that bring millions into the Scottish economy, rely implicitly on water for their very survival.
Our world-renowned golf courses could not attract the prized tourist dollar without the water-sapping attentions of sprinkler systems adding lushness to their greens.
Nathan Critchlow-Watton, head of water and planning at Sepa, is in no doubt that global warming is behind this creeping nightmare of a parched landscape praying for the deluge. ‘Water scarcity used to be a rare event in Scotland,
but since the drought of 2018 we’ve had issues nearly every year,’ he said.
‘Last summer, Scotland experienced its second driest AprilSeptember period in 160 years and this March we’ve had only around half the month’s expected average rainfall.
‘It takes a sustained period of rainfall before groundwater levels are topped back up again and with a decrease in summer rainfall also expected this year, we have to be prepared for increased pressure on Scotland’s water resources, perhaps in places that have never had to deal with water scarcity before.’
He added: ‘As the climate changes, our predictions suggest that by 2050, the drought of 2018 could happen every other year. And that will have serious impacts for businesses as well as for the environment.’
Traditionally, global warming was expected to make Scotland warmer but wetter so the thought that it might also leave it gasping for water seems counter-intuitive, especially given the recent spate of violent storms that laid waste to millions of trees across the country. And it surely wasn’t that long ago that Sepa was issuing flood warnings on many rivers, not drought warnings.
‘We have had floods at the same time as droughts and that’s to do with changing rainfall patterns, where you get a heavy downpour which the surface drains cannot cope with which leads to flooding,’ explained Mr CritchlowWatton. ‘And that can happen at the same time as parts of Scotland are in drought conditions. With climate change we are seeing an increase in some parts of the country being warmer and wetter and others being cooler and drier, with these two paradoxical things going on at once.’
And floods don’t necessarily help the earth retain more water either, he added: ‘Think of the ground like a sponge that soaks up rainwater through the winter. If you have a lot more water suddenly, the sponge has no more capacity, so it overflows and runs everywhere.’
IT doesn’t necessarily end up in Scotland’s reservoirs either. Scottish Water, which is putting up its prices by 4.2 per cent in the 2022-23 financial year, revealed that reservoir levels dropped 2 per cent last week to 87 per cent full. A spokesman added: ‘Reservoir levels are likely to fall in the coming months, especially if we have dry weather, and we will monitor this and manage water resources to maintain normal
service to customers as we do yearround, every year.’
Nevertheless, the toll on industry of such increasingly unpredictable weather is emerging from the receding groundwaters every bit as clearly at the old Glendevon farmhouse.
amy Geddes is the fourth generation to run her family’s 790– acre arable farm at Wester Braikie, on the angus coast near arbroath, but increasingly unpredictable weather has made planning the yearly crop cycle a major headache.
the mother of two told BBC
Radio 4’s Farming today programme: ‘We have had a touch more spring rain here than in the past, which is great.
‘Certainly in the past few springs, we’ve noticed it has been incredibly dry, which means soil conditions might not be ideal for planting and our seed potatoes are delayed coming through the ground just because they haven’t had the moisture and the temperatures as well to get going.’
Farmers, many of whom receive licences from Sepa to abstract groundwater for crops, are going to have to build greater resilience into their planning, said Mrs Geddes, who is considering creating a lagoon or small reservoir at the farm to collect winter rains for use over the summer.
Water, of course, is at the very heart of whisky distilling – its very name derives from the Gaelic ‘uisge beath’, or water of life – used in the product, to cleanse it and to cool it.
In all, around ten litres of water go into creating one litre of spirit, although industry body, the Scotch Whisky association (SWa), points out that water efficiency among its members has improved by 22 per cent since 2012. Many distilleries often have a summer shutdown to ease the burden on local water stocks, co-ordinating it with essential maintenance, but droughts in 2018 halted production for an extended period at many distilleries across Islay, Perthshire, and Speyside.
LaSt summer, Inver house Distillers temporarily halted production at its Pulteney Distillery in Wick, Caithness, which draws water from Loch hempriggs, over concerns about low water levels.
the impact of climate change goes much deeper than the odd distillery shutting for a few weeks a year, however.
Researchers at University College London found impending heat and drought stress caused by global warming could drastically impact the volume and quality of spring barley in Scotland.
More than 800,000 tons are required annually in Scotch Whisky production and a reduction in yield, as seen in 2018, could cost the industry up to £27million a year. a predicted decline in summer rainfall of up to 18 per cent and a 2 Celsius annual rise in temperature by 2080 also suggests that summer droughts would happen with much greater frequency.
Climate change in the next 50-100 years could also threaten to alter the flavour profile of whisky in Scotland as stages of its production, including malting, fermentation, distillation and maturation, have all been developed to suit the temperate maritime climate of the area. Warmer air and water temperatures could affect the character, consistency and quality of the spirit, the report warned.
It is with no little irony that the new Cairn distillery on Speyside has a ‘green’ roof made of sedum, a plant that requires very little watering and can even survive drought.
the SWa said its members were continually looking for ways to improve water stewardship and preserve the landscapes where Scotch Whisky must be made.
a spokesman said: ‘the industry will continue to work with Sepa and other regulators to ensure water is used responsibly.’
It is becoming a mantra among many water-reliant sectors which recognise the growing pressures likely to be applied to their practices as resources become scarcer.
Mr Critchlow-Watton said: ‘Scotland is used to having a lot of water and the attitude and culture is around having a lot of water, so not all industries have put in place measures to ensure they are resilient for the future. But that is what we encourage them to do as this is a pattern we expect to continue.’
Rising concerns over water scarcity have yet to affect the 97 per cent of the population who are connected to the public water supply via the 30,000 miles of water mains operated for the past 17 years by Scottish Water.
But, Sepa’s alerts are intended to flag up potential issues to the roughly 180,000 people, who rely on private springs or boreholes for their water supplies. Last July, an entire community in South ayrshire ran out of water when, without warning, their private water supply just stopped coming out of their taps.
Professor Lindsay Beevers, an environmental engineer at the University of edinburgh, said water scarcity still isn’t taken seriously enough despite its growing impact. ‘Scotland is a wet country if you compare it to southern europe, but that doesn’t mean we won’t experience water scarcity issues in future, particularly if we are not as set up to deal with them as other countries who are used to them.’
Scottish Water said: ‘Due to climate change, it is becoming increasingly important that we treat water as a precious natural resource by reducing what we waste and that everyone, whether in households or businesses, uses water efficiently.’
When a country like Scotland is being hit by drought, it seems like the time for action is already upon us. But as Upper Glendevon Reservoir shows, we never miss the water until the well runs dry.