Scottish Environment Protection Agency Research Articles

Integrating direct messaging with flood alerts and warnings: Insights into effectiveness from a registered public user population

AbstractDirect messaging involving simultaneous mass transmission of brief text or voice messages to large numbers of recipients has become a frontline method in flood hazard communications. Messages are intended to serve as cues, drawing recipients' attention to changing conditions, yet the actual effectiveness of direct messaging among recipient groups remains under‐examined. This article considers direct messaging within the Floodline public flood warning service in Scotland, implemented by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA). Within Floodline, messaging is integrated with alerting and warning information, termed straightforwardly ‘Flood Alerts’ and ‘Flood Warnings’. Collaborating with SEPA, we conducted an online questionnaire survey of registered Floodline direct messaging recipients. In this article, our analysis focusses specifically on responses to three open‐ended questions included in this survey, with an iterative qualitative coding approach employed to interpret themes of meaning from the question responses. This analysis gives a clear indication that recipients value Floodline and direct messaging. However, there are also questions raised over the utility of Flood Alerts and related messaging, which we elaborate in the findings and discussion, along with the scope for adding content, linking to other information, and developing closer relationships. Changes being developed by SEPA align with several of these findings.

The latest Environment Agency Guidance for Noise and Vibration Management of Environmental Permits

Environmental permits have conditions that require operators to control pollution - this includes controlling noise and vibration. The Environment Agency (EA), Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), Natural Resources Wales (NRW) and Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) produced and published new guidance for Management of Noise for Permitted Processes in 2021, to help holders and potential holders of permits apply for, vary, and comply with their permits. The guidance is common to all four regulators. This guidance replaced the original Horizontal guidance for noise usually referred to as H3. The paper will cover the development, authoring and publishing of the guidance. It will also cover some of the reasoning behind and the major clarifications which are contained within the new guidance. Issues with noise impact assessments and demonstrations of Best Available Techniques and Appropriate Measures will also be covered. The guidance was developed to be consistent with the noise policies of all four devolved governments. The paper will briefly cover requirements of both operators and their consultants under legislation and the published guidance.

Not Going to Waste - Preserving Scotland’s COVID-19 Wastewater Data

Particles of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the causative agent of the COVID-19 disease, can enter the sewage system through faeces of infected people. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) has been monitoring viral levels in wastewater since May 2020 in over 100 locations, as such data is a good indicator of COVID-19 spread throughout the population. These estimates are combined with others to provide the best overall estimate of disease prevalence and viral reproduction (R) values, at the Scottish and UK levels. These longitudinal, geospatial data are costly to obtain while they have a high potential for re-use. However, access to the data risks deteriorating over time once COVID-19 becomes an endemic infection and monitoring programmes terminate. Our team worked on the open research front of the programme monitoring SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater, with the aim to develop appropriate preservation strategies while following open science and FAIR data principles. Here we will present the curation process of making the outputs complete and unambiguous. We will describe the multiple ways in which we disseminated the data to maximize their visibility and re-usability, while assuring cost-free, long-term preservation, as well as share some recommendations for such multi-institutional initiatives. Briefly, our work included sharing data in public repositories, submitting a data paper to a scientific data journal, and curating and transcribing protocols, which were also published in online platforms. A dashboard webpage containing the links to published outputs was also created: https://biordm.github.io/COVID-Wastewater-Scotland. By making these data open and FAIR, we are supporting COVID-19 data transparency, assisting with government decisions and accountability. Additionally, the detailed data and methodologies can help with the implementation of similar surveillance programmes in the future, as well as assist with the modelling and analysis of the past SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks.
 Funding: CREW; Grant CD2019_06 Tracking SARS-CoV-2 via municipal wastewater

Spatiotemporal trends and annual fluxes of pharmaceuticals in a Scottish priority catchment

Pharmaceuticals (a class of emerging contaminants) are continuously introduced into effluent-receiving surface waters due to their incomplete removal within wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). This work investigated the presence and distribution of eight commonly used human pharmaceuticals in the River Dee (Scotland, UK), a Scottish Environment Protection Agency priority catchment that is a conservation site and important raw water source. Grab sampling and passive sampling (Polar Organic Chemical Integrative Sampler, POCIS) was performed over 12 months, targeting: paracetamol, ibuprofen, and diclofenac (analgesics/anti-inflammatories); clarithromycin and trimethoprim (antibiotics); carbamazepine and fluoxetine (psychoactive drugs); and 17α-ethynylestradiol (estrogen hormone). Sampling sites spanned from the river's rural source to the heavily urbanised estuary into the North Sea. Ibuprofen (ranging 0.8–697 ng/L), paracetamol (ranging 4–658 ng/L), trimethoprim (ranging 3–505 ng/L), diclofenac (ranging 2–324 ng/L) and carbamazepine (ranging 1–222 ng/L) were consistently detected at the highest concentrations through grab sampling, with concentrations generally increasing down river with increasing urbanisation. However, POCIS revealed trace contamination of most compounds throughout the river (commonly <0.5 ng/L), indicating pollution may be related to diffuse sources. Analysis of river flows revealed that low flow and warm seasons corresponded to statistically significantly higher concentrations of diclofenac and carbamazepine, two compounds of environmental and regulatory concern. Below the largest WWTP, annual average fluxes ranged 0.1 kg/yr (clarithromycin) to 143.8 kg/yr (paracetamol), with 226.2 kg/yr for total target compounds. It was estimated that this source contributed >70% of the total mass loads (dissolved phase) of the target compounds in the river. As the River Dee is an important raw water source and conservation site, additional catchment monitoring is warranted to safeguard water quality and assess environmental risk of emerging contaminants, particularly in relation to unusual weather patterns, climate change and population growth.

Mapping future water scarcity in a water abundant nation: Near-term projections for Scotland

With its abundant water resources, Scotland has ambitions to become a 'hydro nation'. Hydroclimatological projections indicate that the spatial and temporal distribution of water is likely to change, with parts of Scotland becoming significantly drier. This study, conducted in conjunction with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) looked to identify which regions and sectors may be subject to increased water scarcity pressures in the near-future (2020–2049).Accounting for more than 99% of (non-public water) surface water abstractions, four key water using sectors were considered: agriculture, aquaculture (finfish), hydropower (with storage; excluding run-of-river (ROR)) and whisky. Drought events, defined by SEPA as a period where daily flow falls below a long-term Q95 threshold for more than 30-days, were profiled in terms of their average frequency, duration and intensity (over a 30-year time slice).Two hotspots (of drought and abstraction) identified were the rivers Spey and Tay, which represent the centres of the Scotch whisky sector and agriculture respectively. Under climate change, the frequency of drought events could see a two or three-fold increase (median 2–7 additional events). The direction of the change in average drought duration was more uncertain (median change of 0–4 days per event). The results indicated that abstraction exacerbated the pressure. Capturing different sources of uncertainty (parameter and structural), the hydroclimatological data was drawn from two climate ensembles. Overall, the PPE (parameter uncertainty) was found to have narrower uncertainty bounds overall, though the MME (structural uncertainty) was subject to less uncertainty in specific locales in the north. These results highlight the limitation of focussing on one ensemble type/source of ensemble uncertainty across such a diverse domain.Overall, the paper demonstrates the need for a consistent approach to future water resource planning across Scotland. This planning must consider all sectors consistently and requires cross-sector and cross-disciplinary input and collaboration in order to facilitate wise use of future water resources.

The chronic toxicity of emamectin benzoate to three marine benthic species using microcosms.

The commercial farming of Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar, may require the periodic application of emamectin benzoate (EB) treatments to reduce the effects of biological pests, such as sea lice. As a result, EB is detected in sediments beneath these fish farms at considerable levels. Literature sediment toxicity data for EB for marine benthic species is only available for 10-day sediment toxicity tests, which might be too short to assess field effects. Here, we present a sediment toxicity test to determine 28-day mortality and growth effect concentrations for the non-target polychaete worm Arenicola marina, the crustacean Corophium volutator and the mollusk Cerastoderma edule using a marine microcosm setup. Results indicate that no concentration-dependent increase of mortality and growth rate was apparent to A. marina and C. edule. But for C. volutator, a concentration-dependent increase in mortality was observed, resulting in a calculated 28-d LC50 of 316μg/kg dry sediment (95% confidence interval: 267-373μg/kg dry sediment). There were significant effects on C. volutator growth rate at concentrations of 100μg/kg dry sediment and above (NOEC=30μg/kg dry sediment). These observations show that C. volutator is more sensitive to EB than A. marina, which differs from results reported in previous studies. Comparison to the most sensitive NOEC (30μg/kg dry sediment) found for C. volutator (organisms of 8-11mm length), shows that the Environmental Quality Standard, derived by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency in 2017 which based on freshwater species data (NOEC=1.175μg/kg dry sediment), are relatively strict and is sufficiently protective for the marine species tested in this paper.

Soil risk maps – Interpreting soils data for policy makers, agencies and industry

AbstractSurface runoff, erosion, compaction and the leaching of potential pollutants from land can degrade the soil resource and damage the water environment, reducing crop yields, causing loss of valuable nutrients and organic matter, together with increasing flood risk. Increasingly, it is recognized that scientific information must be translated into practical tools to change practices and protect the soil and water resource. Working alongside agencies in Scotland, we applied a suite of simple, transparent, rule‐based models to identify areas most at risk of exporting sediment and pollutants that may degrade water quality based on field‐scale (1:25,000) soil maps. The maps have been used by Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Scottish Water and Scottish Government to assess soil risks to waters from field to regional scale. The work brought scientists together with policy makers, agencies and the water industry to pool their knowledge to apply these practical tools for decision‐making. It highlights the need to apply existing knowledge to answer salient questions. All three examples described show that providing the right type of information, which is based on fundamental soils data, can directly influence the implementation of policies, investment and monitoring decisions and provide evidence in support of government. However, this requires both researchers and agency scientists to develop skills as knowledge brokers and to normalize the use of soil data in everyday agency settings.

A statistical emulator for multivariate model outputs with missing values

Statistical emulators are used to approximate the output of complex physical models when their computational burden limits any sensitivity and uncertainty analysis of model output to variation in the model inputs.In this paper, we introduce a flexible emulator which is able to handle multivariate model outputs and missing values. The emulator is based on a spatial model and the D-STEM software, which is extended to include emulator fitting using the EM algorithm. The missing values handling capabilities of the emulator are exploited to keep the number of model output realisations as low as possible when the computing burden of each realisation is high.As a case study, we emulate the output of the Atmospheric Dispersion Modelling System (ADMS) used by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) to model the air quality of the city of Aberdeen (UK). With the emulator, we study the city air quality under a discrete set of realisations and identify conditions under which, with a given probability, the 40 μgm−3 yearly average concentration limit for NO2 of EU legislation is not exceeded at the locations of the city monitoring stations.The effect of missing values on the emulator estimation and probability of exceedances are studied by means of simulations.

The Natural Hazards Partnership: A public-sector collaboration across the UK for natural hazard disaster risk reduction

The Natural Hazards Partnership (NHP) is a collaboration between 17 UK public bodies11The Natural Hazards Partnership is comprised of British Geological Survey, Cabinet Office, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, Environment Agency, Government Office for Science, Health & Safety Executive, Met Office, National Centre for Atmospheric Science, National Oceanography Centre, Natural Environment Research Council, Ordnance Survey, Public Health England, Scottish Environment Protection Agency, The Scottish Government, UK Space Agency and Welsh Government. to provide authoritative, consistent, and useful, hazard, impact and risk assessment information to responder communities and governments. Over the last decade, disasters have affected over 1.5 billion people across the world and damages are estimated to have exceeded $1.5 trillion. To reduce future impacts from natural disasters, the NHP is looking to establish itself as an international model of best practice for delivery of trusted natural hazard advice and services. Development of this impact-focused information and advice is supported by coordinated access to cutting-edge science and natural hazard impact research. This paper presents the NHP as a successful example of a national collaboration of public bodies with a common goal. The partnership's organization and scientific approach is discussed alongside a review of activities and deliverables developed to help realize the NHP's vision: ‘To be the UK's trusted voice for natural hazards advice’. The NHP has overcome collaborative challenges of multi-organizational, geographically dispersed working by building common ground, respect and trust. This has allowed the development of strong leadership and inter-organizational coordination practices and created an agreed common approach to scientific research. These achievements have helped to ensure that the NHP produces valuable products, services and advice, which could translate to other disciplines and other communities.

Accounting for the Assimilative Capacity of Water Systems in Scotland

A key methodological challenge in understanding the relationship between the economy and the underlying ecosystem base resides in how to account for the ecosystem’s degradation and the decline of associated ecosystem services. In this study, we use information on nutrients and metals concentrations from the Environmental Change Network (ECN) database and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) for the period 2000–2010 in order to assess the assimilation capacity of water systems. The research covers five upstream sites and 17 downstream sites in northeast Scotland. Our results highlight the relevance of considering a number of pollutants, and suggest that elements such as arsenic, lead and mercury can pose a threat to ecosystems’ sustainability and health. However, little research has been done in terms of their assimilation capacity and their impact on grey water footprint assessments. In addition, the results indicate that background conditions might be relevant when performing sustainability analysis at different spatial scales. The study also poses relevant questions in relation to land management approaches versus traditional ‘end-of-pipe’ water treatment approaches, and the definition of maximum and background concentrations. In this regard, further studies will be required to understand the trade-offs between different ecosystem services depending on how these concentrations are defined.

Developing a saltmarsh monitoring methodology to meet multiple policy and management objectives in Scotland

To meet Scotland’s conservation and legislative requirements to monitor and set management objectives for saltmarsh habitat, a national survey was developed jointly funded by Scottish Natural Heritage and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. This national survey focussed on developing a fine scale vegetation map of all Scottish saltmarshes over 3 ha, which was digitised using GIS software. A condition monitoring protocol was also developed to assess the health of key ecological parameters of the saltmarsh system. A total of 7,704 ha of coastal habitat was surveyed as part of the project, which included 5,840 ha of saltmarsh vegetation and 1,864 ha of associated vegetation. The condition monitoring protocol results show that targets relating to the presence of built structures and transition integrity are not achieved more frequently than others. Targets for stock grazing intensity; the maintenance of saltmarsh extent; and poaching damage are also not achieved frequently. Further research is required to accurately reflect the condition of pioneer saltmarsh.

A spatially distributed risk screening tool to assess climate and land use change impacts on water-related ecosystem services

To support the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD), and as part of a tiered approach to prioritise detailed modelling, a high-level screening methodology has been developed to assess the vulnerability of water-related ecosystem services (ES) to future change. The approach incorporates a range of spatially distributed scenarios of land use and climate, which are used as inputs to a qualitative risk assessment model underpinned by expert opinion. The method makes use of widely available datasets and provides a structured way of capturing and “codifying” expert knowledge, as well as for assessing the degree of consensus between different expert groups. The range of model output reflects uncertainty in both the expert-derived assumptions and the climate & land use simulations considered. The approach has been developed in collaboration with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and applied in Scotland to support the second cycle of River Basin Management Planning.

Briefing: An update on reservoir safety regulation in Scotland

The regulatory landscape for reservoir safety in Scotland is changing. The regulatory duties are being transferred from local authorities to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) in a phased manner through implementation of the Reservoirs (Scotland) Act 2011 (‘the 2011 Act’). This paper summarises the transitional timetable and describes the registration requirements for existing large raised reservoirs. The risk designation process for registered reservoirs is highlighted and information given on a new charging scheme for reservoir safety. New powers in the form of civil sanctions are to be made available to SEPA through separate legislation, which will be used positively to achieve compliance with the legislation and to ensure that the reservoir structures are safe. Ongoing, good communication will be essential as both SEPA and the reservoir industry adjust to the new regulatory regime in Scotland.

Using fish mortality data to assess reporting thresholds as a tool for detection of potential disease concerns in the Scottish farmed salmon industry

Authorities have a requirement to establish methods of monitoring emerging disease issues in production animals including farmed Atlantic salmon. One such method has been the development of benchmarking criteria for the reporting of mortality events (which may be indicative of an emerging issue) derived from the observations from a single company production database. Here we use data obtained by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency between 2002–2009 for the entire Scottish farmed Atlantic salmon industry to demonstrate that similar production patterns occur for differing production cycles and geographic regions compared to the observations of a single company, suggesting that the reporting criteria can be applied nationally. Furthermore, the data demonstrates that had the current mortality criteria been in operation during 2002–2009, there would have been conditions resulting in 489 reporting events – a mean of five reporting events (95% CI [0,12.25]) month−1 equating to 62 (95% CI [30.45, 94.6]) year−1 – from 190 production sites, with summer months having greater reporting incidence. However, from a peak in 2003, there would have been a decline in reporting events, suggesting an improvement in health and welfare management. Statement of relevanceThis work supports the previously described benchmarking thresholds for reporting mortality events as an indicator of emerging diseases issues. This work considers data for all producers in Scotland across geographic regions and represents fish production cohorts between 2002–2009. By having a reporting threshold, it will enable the fish health inspectorate to reduce production losses through diseases issues and also provide a means of acting as an early warning system for potential emerging diseases issues.

Mountain hydrometeorology

Mountain hydrometeorology

A pragmatic methodology for horizon scanning of water quality linked to future climate and land use scenarios

Future climate and land use changes will have implications for water quantity and quality and could make attainment of targets, such as those set by the EU Water Framework Directive, harder to achieve. High uncertainty in how climate and land use will change, coupled with the extreme complexities of modelling multi-pollutant water quality on larger scales, means that it is difficult to factor future changes into policy decisions. This study set out to develop a new approach to provide a simple means of horizon scanning likely directions of change of pollutant responses, at a national scale, to different future scenarios for climate and land use. This would address a methodological gap in modelling caused by the impracticalities of applying physically based multi-pollutant modelling tools at large scales and enable end-users, such as regulatory agencies, to better understand broad-scale implications of climate and land use change scenarios for water quality. The approach taken was to identify a set of key climate and land use change drivers, for a range of different pollutants, that would impact on their sources and transport processes. For the climate component, net changes in mean annual runoff and seasonal precipitation were identified as the principal drivers affecting pollutant availability and transport. Changes between different land use types were assessed for their likelihood of increasing or decreasing different sources of pollutant. The climate and land use drivers were used to construct transition matrices which were applied to spatial maps, depicting possible future climate and land use change scenarios, to evaluate directions of change in water quality risks. A range of different pollutants was considered, including N, P, C, suspended solids, pesticides and faecal indicator organisms. An example set of change scenarios was developed for Scotland based on data from the UKCP09 climate projections and land use changes linked to the Scottish Government's Land Use Strategy. The results highlighted differences both between different pollutants and also between the climate simulations explored in the study. The design of the tool was co-constructed with practitioners from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and therefore although the method is highly qualitative and based on expert judgement, it has already proven to be a valuable tool for use in a policy context to assess the potential scale and location of likely future changes in water quality.

Citizen Science: Indoor and Outdoor Air Quality around Schools

Citizen Science: Indoor and Outdoor Air Quality around SchoolsAbstract Number:2382 Hilary Cowie*, Stefan Reis, Kerry Riddell, Sean Semple, Joanne Crawford, Susanne Steinle, Ben Jackson, and Colin Gillespie Hilary Cowie* Institute of Occupational Medicine, United Kingdom, E-mail Address: [email protected] Search for more papers by this author , Stefan Reis Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, United Kingdom, E-mail Address: [email protected] Search for more papers by this author , Kerry Riddell The Conservation Volunteers, United Kingdom, E-mail Address: [email protected] Search for more papers by this author , Sean Semple University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom, E-mail Address: [email protected] Search for more papers by this author , Joanne Crawford Institute of Occupational Medicine, United Kingdom, E-mail Address: [email protected] Search for more papers by this author , Susanne Steinle Institute of Occupational Medicine/Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, United Kingdom, E-mail Address: [email protected] Search for more papers by this author , Ben Jackson Scottish Environment Protection Agency, United Kingdom, E-mail Address: [email protected] Search for more papers by this author , and Colin Gillespie Scottish Environment Protection Agency, United Kingdom, E-mail Address: [email protected] Search for more papers by this author AbstractCitizen science is the engagement of the general public in scientific research. Involvement can be 'contributory’ in projects designed entirely by scientists, ‘collaborative’ e.g. more involved in the analysis of data or ‘co-produced’ with participation in design and development of a project. Citizen science projects can be based on simple recording of observations (e.g. counting bird species) or technology- based using sensors or smartphone apps to enable information collection. We report here work from two pilot studies in which we engaged with schools to investigate indoor and outdoor air quality. The first study monitored the impact car drop-off and pick-up activity had on outdoor air quality near schools. Measurements of particulate matter concentrations were made using the commercially available Dylos DC1700 particle counter. After one week, data were extracted by project scientists and summary findings provided. The second study used a specially designed sensor to measure indoor air quality (temperature, relative humidity, NO2) and noise. The sensor provided real-time, online data display in a user-friendly format accessible at any time by the pupils and teachers. Schools were enthusiastic about involvement in citizen science work, but required activities to be in line with existing teaching objectives and topics (in Scotland the Curriculum for Excellence). Engagement with schools requires a long lead-in time as plans for each term are made well in advance, but school staff particularly welcome the opportunity for practical hands-on involvement of the pupils in environmental observation and data analysis. It is important to communicate to participants issues of measurement variability and calibration, especially where they can access the data directly, to avoid over-interpretation of occasional high or outlying measurement values. The work was supported by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and the EU-funded project CITI-SENSE.

Treatment rates for sea lice of Scottish inshore marine salmon farms depend on local (sea loch) farmed salmon biomass and oceanography

AEI Aquaculture Environment Interactions Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsTheme Sections AEI 5:117-125 (2014) - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/aei00099 Treatment rates for sea lice of Scottish inshore marine salmon farms depend on local (sea loch) farmed salmon biomass and oceanography Alexander G. Murray*, Malcolm Hall Marine Scotland Science Marine Laboratory, 375 Victoria Road, Aberdeen AB11 9DB, UK *Corresponding author: sandy.murray@scotland.gsi.gov.uk ABSTRACT: Sea lice are the most damaging parasite of marine-farmed salmon. Lice are controlled largely by using medicines. Discharge consents limit the allowed medicine use and hence biomass of salmon that can be farmed. The local environment may be expected to play a role in determining the frequency of application of these medicines on specific salmon farm sites. To assess this, we used data collected by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency on lice treatments and fish biomasses from 2005 to 2012 for salmon farm sites located within sea lochs (offshore sites are not included), together with local hydrographic data. There was relatively little variation in treatment rates between different sites within a loch, so a loch (or larger unit) is the appropriate area for analysis of factors influencing these treatment rates. Treatment rates tended to increase with the loch’s total biomass of farmed salmon. Dependence of treatment rate on loch flushing time was highly significant in all regions; however, dependence was positive in the Northern and Western Isles but negative in mainland Scotland. A possible explanation is flushing of lice away from island sea lochs but into mainland sea lochs, in line with prevailing currents. Regional variation in dependence suggests that oceanographic processes at larger spatial scales play a significant role in determining lice dynamics. KEY WORDS: Sea lice treatment · Generalised linear model · Salmon aquaculture Full text in pdf format PreviousNextCite this article as: Murray AG, Hall M (2014) Treatment rates for sea lice of Scottish inshore marine salmon farms depend on local (sea loch) farmed salmon biomass and oceanography. Aquacult Environ Interact 5:117-125. https://doi.org/10.3354/aei00099 Export citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in AEI Vol. 5, No. 2. Online publication date: May 20, 2014 Print ISSN: 1869-215X; Online ISSN: 1869-7534 Copyright © 2014 Inter-Research.

River basin management, development planning, and opportunities for debate around limits to growth

Summary Some of the latest global paradigms in sustainable water governance revolve around ideas of promoting greater integration within policy implementation processes that impact on land and water. The EU Water Framework Directive (WFD), seen by many as a ‘Sustainability Directive’, reflects this trend, and places particular emphasis on building linkages between water management and land use planning. This paper presents the results of a research project that examined this integrative vision in a real world setting – the emerging relationship between the WFD’s river basin management planning (RBMP) framework and the development planning (DP) system in Scotland. The project’s approach draws from interpretive policy analysis, and the results are based on analyses of key policy documents, as well as in-depth interviews, primarily with land use planning staff from local authorities, as well as other relevant public agencies such as the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA). The results show how an overarching political objective of ‘increasing sustainable economic growth’ is significantly affecting stakeholders’ understandings of the RBMP-DP relationship, as well as their own roles and responsibilities within that relationship. This has created barriers to the deliberation and potential operationalisation of environmental limits to growth in the built environment, which may be skewing decision-making processes in a way that undermines the RBMP framework and its objectives of protecting and improving the water environment.

Assessing the impact of projected climate change on drought vulnerability in Scotland

Although Scotland is relatively water resource rich in a UK and European context, water resource scarcity can occur during exceptional dry periods such as those experienced in North West Scotland during July 2012. Precipitation and flow anomaly indices have been recently developed and introduced operationally by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, in order to assess the severity of dry episodes and use this information within the decision-making process when managing the ecological implications of measures required to ensure continuity of water supply. The latest projections of future climate in the UK (UKCP09) point to warmer, drier summers across much of Scotland and, as such, imply an increased frequency of periods of water shortage. This study makes use of the results from a collaborative project in which projected values of climate variables have been used to derive projected river flows at a number of catchments across the UK. These datasets have been used to evaluate the change in frequency of significant precipitation and flow deficits in Scotland. The findings suggest a marked increase in frequency of summer water resource scarcity across much of Scotland which has implications for water resource management, particularly where current storage is relatively low.