THE highest water scarcity alert has been issued by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) this week for several areas in Scotland, meaning river levels in the east of the country have reached a “critical” point.
On Monday the "significant scarcity" alert was put in place across the Ythan and North Fife catchments, and on Tuesday the Deveron catchment was put at the same level.
Sepa has restricted the amount of water that can be taken from the environment in these areas.
Earlier this month, the River Almond, Tweed, Findhorn, Spey, Dee and Firth of Forth were all put on alert.
But how worried should Scots be about these alerts? Why are they being issued in the east and not the west? And what can we do to be more mindful of our water use?
We spoke to environmental engineering and hydrology expert Professor Lindsay Beevers to find out more.
Should we be worried?
The alerts issued by Sepa come after the driest spring since 1964 and a summer which has seen prolonged periods of hot and dry weather.
Sepa said that in the Deveron, for the January to August period, 2025 had the highest number of days at low flow since 1976, with rivers unable to recover despite short bursts of heavy rain in recent weeks.
Beevers, based at the University of Edinburgh, said while we shouldn’t be scared of these alerts being issued, they will become more commonplace with climate change and we should now be thinking about how we can be more mindful about water use.
She told The National: "Floods and droughts are natural phenomena, they happen and what Sepa has to do is monitor the environment and issue alerts and it’s not something we are that used to in Scotland. We’re much more used to more water than less.
“As a result, it sounds scary, but it’s not necessarily. This is something that’s natural and does occur.
“We should understand what it means to us and what we can do to be more resilient with water and be more mindful of the way we use it perhaps, but these warnings that are being issued are not matched by water restrictions from Scottish Water.
“The alerts are there to help us understand we need to be mindful about how we use this precious resource.”
While we might think of Scotland as having a lot of water and rain, Beevers stressed water scarcity alerts are not something new and they have been issued several times by Sepa in recent years.
What can we do to help?
Beevers was keen to stress that essential water use for drinking and keeping yourself clean is not something people should be concerned about at all.
But she did say that we will need to get more used to not necessarily having all the water that we want, when we want it, and there are ways we can be mindful about our water use.
“Scottish Water have not issued any water scarcity concerns. This is only Sepa and it is important to make that distinction.
“This is more about nature and abstractors such as agriculture or industries such as the drinks industry and potentially energy.
“Because we’re used to having lots of water, we need to now become more aware we might not have all the water we want all the time.”
Beevers added that in industry and agriculture, we may need to get smarter about how we use and store water.
“With water, you know where it is but it doesn’t always come at the right time and in the right place,” he said.
“But we can know we have a more water-rich period which tends to be in the autumn and winter and into spring and that is the beauty of reservoirs that hold the water and allow us to use it when we don’t have much water.
“But we can do that in a clever way and a much more disaggregated way across catchments. So, in the landscape, you can have small ponds, and you can build these small areas that hold the water when there is more water when you’re in a drier period. Perhaps that’s what we need to be looking at for more industry and agriculture.”
Is this going to happen more often?
Beevers says water scarcity alerts are going to become a bigger part of our lives and we will see more floods and droughts as a result of climate change.
“We will see more floods and more droughts, particularly in the north east where you’re seeing these water scarcity alerts [at the moment],” she said.
“The north east and the east of the country are likely to see more prolonged periods of water scarcity and more extreme flooding as a result of climate change.”
Why the east more than the west?
There is an east and west divide right across the UK when it comes to weather conditions and climate, which is linked to orography – the formation and features of mountains.
But the reason why we are getting more water scarcity alerts in the east of Scotland also has to do with river catchments.
Beevers explained: “If you have a look at the hydrology, the way the river catchments work across Scotland, most of the big catchments drain east, and many of the smaller ones drain west. So, it’s these big ones that drain east that are potentially getting less of the rain as the climate warms.”
She added: “I do think we need to be mindful. The environment is really important and that is why Sepa is issuing these alerts. We need the fish but also all the macro invertebrates and all the little beasties that also live in the rivers in order to support the habitats to ensure we have the fish, and we have the beautiful environment we enjoy in Scotland.”
