Sustainable Communities

As the need for onshore wind energy expands, such climate adaptation measures may have unintended and potentially significant influences on how fish respond when situated next to rivers or streams. The aim of this project was to examine evidence of potential impacts of shadow flicker, from wind turbine blades, on Atlantic salmon in the context of species conservation management and climate mitigation strategy in Scotland.

Around 3.3% of Scotland’s population (182,516 people) are served by private water supplies (PWS) together with transient visitors such as tourists. This project sought to develop an understanding of the epidemiology and disease burden contribution of PWS in Scotland on the public health of the populations (indigenous and transient) exposed to the PWS. The project report comprises a risk profile to provide current knowledge about the risks of gastrointestinal pathogens associated with private water supplies in Scotland.

This project was developed to downscale aspects of Scotland’s country-scale phosphorus (P) mass balance by looking at potential for regional recycling. The research firstly examined the background context of P sustainability in terms of recycled P sources, usage opportunities and constraints via a literature review.

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has received increasing attention over the past year across the world. In the UK, local, regional and national wastewater monitoring programmes were established in 2020 to detect severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoVID-2) patterns in human sewage to monitor outbreaks. The establishment of these monitoring programmes has seen considerable investment into establishing the infrastructure, methodology and resources needed to sample, analyse, and interpret data from WBE.

The aim of this study was to better understand the likely impacts of climate change (amount, frequency, and distribution of precipitation) on Private Water Supplies (PWS) in Scotland. In particular, the consequences on PWS resilience to water shortages in order to assess changes in vulnerability due to reduced quantity of water as a result of climate change.

Industrial estates are a well-recognised cause of pollution and Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS) have been identified as an important option to address the pollution risk. This study aimed to investigate the potential for retrofitting SUDS on industrial estates to try to reduce pollution of watercourses. The project focused primarily on source control SUDS, or SUDS on an individual property bassis, as well as conveyance types of SUDS.

There are approximately 22,000 private water supplies in Scotland serving a population of nearly 197,000 people Many of these are also micro- and other businesses which rely on these supplies for their existence: frequently providing services to a broader public as visitors and tourists particularly in remote rural areas of the country.

This project sought to review the challenges in delivering drinking water compliance, with a focus on the quality and quantity of investment drivers, and to assess the proposed or deployed solutions against these criteria. These outputs will assist in identifying value for money criteria for investment; identify how the policy and regulatory framework includes water treatment choices, risk appetite and costs; identify how changes to the policy framework could improve value for money and sustainability and inform policy on drinking water treatment based on economics and quality enhancement.

Many areas of Great Britain were badly affected by flooding over a fourteen-week period in the winter of 2015/2016. The flooding had considerable impacts on numerous communities, including private homes, business premises, transport infrastructure and agricultural land. In Scotland, in early December 2015, severe flooding affected the south of the country with Hawick and Dumfries both badly affected. Late December saw further periods of heavy rainfall that brought more flooding to the South of Scotland, badly affecting Peebles and Newton Stewart.