CREW Code: CRW2022_03

Theme: Hydrological Extremes, Coasts and Risk Management

Project status: Project in progress

Type of project: Capacity building 

Overview: The climate crisis is affecting the quality of Scotland’s standing waters such as lochs and reservoirs, causing changes in water temperatures, hydrological regimes, ecology, and nutrient budgets. There is now an urgent need for fit for purpose mitigation/adaptation strategies that can be created and implemented in Scotland without delay. Further work is required to identify catchment management and in-lake measures that can successfully mitigate climate change impacts on water quality of Scottish standing waters.

Aim: This project (phase 2) will build on the outputs of a previous CREW report (phase 1), which provided evidence to improve our understanding of climate change impacts on the water quality of Scottish standing waters at national, regional and local scales. Phase 1 focused on the interactions between climate change, the drivers of eutrophication problems and their impacts. Phase 2 aims to build on phase 1 by identifying and prioritising changes in management practices for Scottish standing waters to maximise the success of climate mitigation action.

Project key questions:

• To what extent can changes in catchment management practices and in-lake processes successfully mitigate climate change impacts on water quality of Scottish standing waters?
• Does existing water policy, and its implementation, sufficiently take climate change impacts on the water quality of Scottish standing waters into account?
• In this specific policy context, what changes may be required and applied under current and projected climate change scenarios for adaptive management responses, monitoring and prioritisation of mitigation measures/solutions?
• What are the recommendations, priorities for action and practical mitigation measures/solutions that can be implemented in the short term (<5yrs) and longer term (>5yrs)?

Impact: This project will help to prioritise coordinated adaptive responses to establish future resilience and prevent further deterioration from climate-driven water quality issues in Scottish standing waters. It will help to increase amenity value (including recreational and wellbeing benefits), reduce public health risk and safeguard communities from climate-driven water quality issues in Scottish standing waters under current and projected climate change scenarios.

Lead research team: UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology