NPPP 2022 SEA Scoping Report: Topic 3 Water

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan, SEA scop­ing Baseline inform­a­tion Top­ic 3 – Water

Con­tents

Ques­tions for con­sulta­tion author­it­ies 1 Con­text 2 Water qual­ity 2 Water quant­ity 4 Water infra­struc­ture 5 Flood­ing 7 Pro­posed SEA object­ives 9

Ques­tions for con­sulta­tion authorities

1. Is there any­thing miss­ing from the Top­ic baseline?
2. Are there any errors in what is presented?
3. Are there any new ini­ti­at­ives, research pro­jects, plans, pro­grammes or strategies or oth­er things that will be report­ing / imple­men­ted over the next 12 – 18 months that are rel­ev­ant to the Top­ic, which may need to be included as the SEA progresses?

Con­text

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park encom­passes the head­wa­ters of three of Scotland’s major rivers, the Tay, Dee and Spey, as well as many smal­ler ones (fig­ure 1).

Repro­duced by per­mis­sion of Ord­nance Sur­vey on behalf of HMSO. Crown copy­right and data­base right

1. All rights reserved. Ord­nance Sur­vey Licence num­ber 100040965 Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority.

Fig­ure 1- river catch­ments with­in the Park

Three of the rivers are sub­ject to catch­ment man­age­ment plans, the Dee, the Esk and the Spey. These plans aim to pro­tect water qual­ity, dir­ect the use of the rivers as resources, pro­tect against flood­ing, enhance biod­iversity, and pro­mote respons­ible access and eco­nom­ic development.

Many of the rivers and their trib­u­tar­ies, as well as the lochs and wet­lands con­nec­ted to them, are inter­na­tion­ally and nation­ally import­ant areas pro­tec­ted for nature con­ser­va­tion. The rivers are also import­ant, provid­ing water for busi­ness and people with­in and out­with the Park, as they flow down­stream towards the sea.

Water qual­ity

Pol­lu­tion lead­ing to the deteri­or­a­tion of water qual­ity can ori­gin­ate from one of two sources, point and dif­fuse. Point source dis­charge means a release of efflu­ent or oth­er mat­ter to the water envir­on­ment or land, via a pipe or outlet.

Examples include (but are not lim­ited to) waste water and trade efflu­ent from indus­tri­al activ­it­ies, and sur­face water col­lec­ted then dis­charged in urb­an areas.

Dif­fuse pol­lu­tion is the release of poten­tial pol­lut­ants from a range of activ­it­ies that, indi­vidu­ally, may have no effect on the water envir­on­ment, but, at the scale of a catch­ment, can have a sig­ni­fic­ant cumu­lat­ive effect. Activ­it­ies asso­ci­ated with dif­fuse pol­lu­tion are var­ied and include (but are not lim­ited to) run-off from roads, sed­i­ment and oth­er mat­ter released dur­ing agri­cul­tur­al and forestry activ­it­ies, and yard run-off from indus­tri­al activities.

Gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tion has been extremely suc­cess­ful in redu­cing instances of point source pol­lu­tion and there­fore dif­fuse pol­lu­tion is now the focus of atten­tion. Dif­fuse sources of water pol­lu­tion can have a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on biod­iversity and human health. The effects include (but are not lim­ited to) con­tam­in­a­tion of water sup­plies, nutri­ent enrich­ment of water bod­ies lead­ing to changes in hab­it­ats and the spe­cies that rely on them, oxy­gen deple­tion and smoth­er­ing of sub­strates and hab­it­ats relied on by fish and oth­er wild­life for key stages in their lifecycles.

The European Uni­on Water Frame­work Dir­ect­ive (2000/60/EC) (WFD, sets out the object­ives for water pro­tec­tion in Scot­land. The WFD sets out a num­ber of object­ives to improve the qual­ity of water and water bodies:

gen­er­al pro­tec­tion of the aquat­ic ecology

spe­cif­ic pro­tec­tion of unique and valu­able habitats

pro­tec­tion of drink­ing water resources

pro­tec­tion of bathing water

All these object­ives must be integ­rated for each river basin. SEPA are respons­ible for mon­it­or­ing water qual­ity in Scot­land to the require­ments set out by the WFD. The Dir­ect­ive requires all water fea­tures above a cer­tain size threshold to be clas­si­fied using a sys­tem of five qual­ity classes – high, good, mod­er­ate, poor and bad, with ground­wa­ter clas­si­fied as good or poor. In gen­er­al, the clas­si­fic­a­tion of water bod­ies describes by how much their con­di­tion or status dif­fers from near nat­ur­al con­di­tions. Water bod­ies in a near nat­ur­al con­di­tion are at high status, while those whose qual­ity has been severely dam­aged are classed as being in bad status

From the avail­able inform­a­tion, between 2013 and 2017 the num­ber of water­bod­ies in the Park in high status have increased slightly, the num­ber in good and mod­er­ate status have declined, while the num­ber in poor status have increased four-fold (fig­ure 2). The main reas­ons for water­bod­ies not achiev­ing over­all good status is the pres­ence of a large num­ber of bar­ri­ers to fish and poor mor­pho­logy (this cov­ers catchment/​land use mat­ters such inputs of fine sed­i­ments or impacts to hydro­logy and dir­ect impacts such as through engin­eer­ing or con­di­tion of ripari­an corridor).

Fig­ure 2 — pro­por­tion of water­bod­ies by status in the Park, 2013 — 2017

SEPA pre­dict that more water­bod­ies in the Park will move into the good/​moderate cat­egory by 2027 (fig­ure 3).

Fig­ure 3 — pre­dicted pro­por­tion of water­bod­ies by status in the Park, 2021 — 2027

The shift to a great­er pro­por­tion hav­ing an improved status is likely to be a res­ult of remedi­ation works on his­tor­ic­al engin­eer­ing and bar­ri­ers to fish passage.

Water quant­ity

In order to provide inform­a­tion for the man­age­ment of water resources, SEPA mon­it­or water levels at 20 sites with­in the Park, as well as at a num­ber of loc­a­tions just out­side the Park bound­ary. Water levels are con­ver­ted to flow at most river gauging stations.

The trends can be used as an indic­at­or of cli­mate change or as an iden­ti­fi­er of poten­tial risks such as flood­ing. Fig­ures 4 and 5 rep­res­ent the series of max­im­um instant­an­eous peak flows with­in a giv­en water year (Octo­ber to Septem­ber) for mon­it­or­ing sta­tions on the River Spey and the River Dee (data was not avail­able for the River Dee from 2015 ‑2018).

Fig­ure 4 — SEPA annu­al max­im­um (AMAX) flow and trend for the River Spey from the Grant­own- on-Spey mon­it­or­ing sta­tion (8010) between 1951 and 2018

Fig­ure 5 — SEPA annu­al max­im­um (AMAX) flow and trend for the River Dee at Pol­hol­lick, near Bal­later (mon­it­or­ing sta­tion 12003) between 1975 and 2015

The data from both sta­tions shows a gen­er­al trend for high­er annu­al max­im­ums dur­ing the mon­it­or­ing peri­od, although the exact causes of this are uncertain.

Water infra­struc­ture

The cur­rent capa­city status of the water and waste treat­ment works provided by Scot­tish Water that serve the set­tle­ments in the Park is shown in table 1.

Table I — Scot­tish Water inform­a­tion on water and waste treat­ment capa­city in the Park, July 2015

Loc­al Author­ity area in the Park	Set­tle­ment	Water Treat­ment Works	Capa­city (hous­ing units)	Waste treat­ment Works	Capa­city (hous­ing units)
Aber­deen-shire	Bal­later	Bal­later	93	Bal­later	93
	Brae­mar	Brae­mar	315	Brae­mar	63
	Din­net	Bal­later	93	Din­net	<10
	Strath­don	Lums­den	<10	Private	N/A
Angus	Angus Glens	Private	N/A	Private	N/A
High­land	An Camas Mòr	Aviemore	966	Aviemore	60
	Aviemore	Aviemore	966	Aviemore	60
	Boat of Garten	Aviemore	966	Boat of Garten	96
	Carr Bridge	Aviemore	966	Carr Bridge	87
	Crom­dale & Advie	Aviemore	966	Crom­dale	105
	Dal­whin­nie	Dal­whin­nie	20	Dal­whin­nie	<10
	Dul­nain Bridge	Aviemore	966	Dul­nain Bridge	24
	Glen­more	Private	N/A	Glen­more	<10
	Grant­own of Spey	Aviemore	966	Grant­own	197
	Insh	Aviemore	966	Insh	<10
	Inver­druie, Coylumbridge	Aviemore	966	Aviemore	60
	Kin­craig	Aviemore	966	Kin­craig	52
	Kin­gussie	Aviemore	966	Kin­gussie	327
	Lag­gan	Lag­gan Bridge	<10	Lag­gan Bridge ST	<10
Moray	Nethy Bridge	Aviemore	966	Nethy Bridge	70
	New­ton­more	Aviemore	966	New­ton­more	208
	Glen­liv­et	Tomnavoulin	<10	Private	N/A
	Tomin­toul	Blairnamar­row	65	Tomin­toul	46
Perth & Kinross	Blair Atholl	Kil­liecrankie	2000+	Blair Atholl	16
	Bru­ar & Pittagowan	Kil­liecrankie	2000+	Private	N/A
	Calv­ine	Kil­liecrankie	2000+	Private	N/A
	Glen­shee	Private	N/A	Private	N/A
	Kil­liecrankie	Kil­liecrankie	2000+	Kil­liecrankie	<10

Includ­ing all planned and com­mit­ted devel­op­ment pro­pos­als, capa­city exists at most of the Scot­tish Water treat­ment works serving set­tle­ments in the Park. How­ever the repor­ted cur­rent (2015) capa­city of many waste treat­ment works serving the Park is a con­straint to devel­op­ment. For example, the Aviemore treat­ment works, which serves the town and much of the sur­round­ing area, includ­ing An Camas Mòr, only has capa­city for a fur­ther 60 units. Invest­ment in both water and waste treat­ment works will be neces­sary for the per­mit­ted and pro­jec­ted growth in the Park to be met. (Where there is no pub­lic water sup­ply net­work with­in the vicin­ity, a private water treat­ment sys­tem or new water infra­struc­ture con­nect­ing to the exist­ing pub­lic net­work would be required.)

Flood­ing

All of the rivers and water­courses in the Park have the poten­tial to flood to some degree. When the main rivers break their banks, they often cause dam­age to land, build­ing and infra­struc­ture, res­ult­ing in eco­nom­ic cost. Small water­courses also rep­res­ent a risk but are often poorly under­stood with respect to the sever­ity of the flood haz­ard that can be gen­er­ated on a catch­ment scale. In some areas sur­face water flood­ing is also a sig­ni­fic­ant risk.

The River Spey is the sev­enth largest river in Bri­tain, with a catch­ment area of over 3,000 km², and a stream net­work length of about 36,500 km, of which the main river com­prises 157 km. There is a long his­tory of flood­ing with­in the Spey catch­ment area, with a not­able event, known as the Great Muckle Spate, des­troy­ing sev­er­al bridges in 1829. The River Spey and its trib­u­tar­ies con­tin­ue to flood reg­u­larly, with heavy rains and melt­ing snows increas­ing the volumes of water in the catch­ment. These floods have dam­aged prop­er­ties in New­ton­more, Aviemore and Car­rbridge on a num­ber of occa­sions. A sig­ni­fic­ant num­ber of prop­er­ties remain at risk of future flood­ing in these and oth­er set­tle­ments iden­ti­fied as Poten­tially Vul­ner­able Areas (PVAs) in the Park (fig­ure 6).

Fig­ure 6 — num­ber of prop­er­ties at risk of flood­ing by selec­ted set­tle­ment in the Park

Like the Spey, the Dee suf­fers from flood­ing related to heavy rain and melt­ing snows. Major floods have been recor­ded in 1769, 1829 (the Great Muckle Spate), 1920 and 1956 (the Cairngorm Flood). More recently, in 2014 the cara­van park and a num­ber of roads were closed due to flood­ing, and in Decem­ber 2015 / Janu­ary 2016, the Dee exper­i­enced wide­spread flood­ing, which caused sig­ni­fic­ant dam­age to prop­erty and trans­port infra­struc­ture. Bal­later has a sig­ni­fic­ant num­ber of prop­er­ties at risk of flood­ing (fig­ure 6).

The River Tay has the largest catch­ment area and is the longest river in Scot­land, with many of its head­wa­ters lying with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. More water flows through the River Tay than any oth­er river in the United King­dom. The Tay catch­ment con­tains one PVA that falls across the Nation­al Park bound­ary at Blair Atholl. A num­ber of his­tor­ic­al river floods have been recor­ded in this area, includ­ing July 1916 and June 1931 when the rail­way was affected and evac­u­ation was required as River Garry flooded near Blair Atholl. There con­tin­ues to be a risk of flood­ing at Blair Atholl from the Garry Burn and from sur­face water (fig­ure 6).

Pro­posed SEA objectives

SEA main object­ive	Sub-object­ive
3a: Main­tain and improve the qual­ity of water resources and to pro­tect and enhance the state of the water environment	Will there be an effect on the water qual­ity of rivers, lochs and ground-water from dif­fuse and point source pollution?
	Will there be an effect on the abil­ity of river catch­ments to store water and the nat­ur­al flood man­age­ment ser­vices they provide?
	Will there be an effect on pub­lic water supplies?
3b: Reduce demand for water and min­im­ise unne­ces­sary water use	Will there be an effect on demand for water from devel­op­ment (res­id­en­tial and business)?
	Will there be an effect on sus­tain­able use of water resources?
3c: To reduce the impact of invas­ive non- nat­ive spe­cies on the water environment	Will there be an effect on the water envir­on­ment from invas­ive non-nat­ive species?