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Water scarcity report - 01 May 2025

What do the map colours mean?

Normal conditions	Early warning	Alert	Moderate scarcity	Significant scarcity
Blue	Green	Yellow	Orange	Red

Water scarcity area descriptions

Weather Forecast

Weakening front clears southeast on Thursday morning allowing perhaps a few heavy showers over southern Borders in the afternoon. Otherwise scattered showers follow into the northwest, continuing through Friday. A change in wind direction means showers become more focused in the north and east on Saturday and Sunday. Becoming mostly dry from late Sunday as showers gradually die out and high pressure builds in from the west.

Advice for water users

We advise water users, including those with private water supplies, to be aware of the potential risk of water scarcity this summer, and for businesses to plan ahead where possible. Advice for abstractors and irrigators.

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Supporting information

This section goes into more detail on the data behind the water scarcity levels.

Rainfall and river flows

These maps show rainfall and river flows relative to the long-term average, for this time of year, over 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months.

Over the past month there has been mainly quite dry or dry conditions in the south of the country, with normal conditions in areas of the central belt. In northern Scotland, there has been mainly dry to extremally dry conditions, with normal conditions in areas of the central highlands. River flows have generally been extremely low to low across most of the country, with some normal and high flows in western Scotland.

Over the last 3 months there has been extremely dry to dry conditions, with quite dry to normal conditions in the far west, including the Outer Hebrides. This is reflected in the extremely low to very low river flows across much of the country.

​Extremely dry to dry conditions have been experienced across much of southern Scotland and Aberdeenshire over the past 6 months. This is reflected in the low and extremely low river flows in these areas. Northern Scotland has mainly experienced normal to dry conditions, with very dry conditions in parts of the far north. River flows along parts of the moray and west coasts have been normal, with the rest of northern Scotland generally having quite low to very low river flows. 

What do the map colours mean?

Rainfall	Extremely dry	Very dry	Dry	Quite dry	Normal conditions	Wet	Very wet
River flow	Extremely low	Very low	Low	Quite low	Normal conditions	High	Very high
	Red	Orange	Light orange	Yellow	Green	Light blue	Dark blue

Soil moisture deficit

Natural water storage – groundwater and loch levels

In each river catchment there is some degree of natural water storage, which can maintain river flows even when it is not raining. This natural water storage is mainly held in lochs and groundwater. When storage has been depleted it will take a lot of rainfall for levels to recover.

The maps below show groundwater and loch level compared to the long-term record at each individual station. Level is reported as high or low compared to the typical (‘normal’) level range for the time of year.

Level ranges are specific to each station and based on the long-term (minimum 10 years) record of mean monthly level values recorded at individual stations. Levels are updated on the first full week of the month.

​Groundwater levels, from our monitoring points, are generally low to very low for the time of year. This is due to the limited recharge over the winter period. Groundwater levels are lower than levels recorded at the beginning of April 2022, particularly in Fife and Angus. Low groundwater levels in April 2022 were followed by a period of drought in summer 2022. Only groundwater levels in the Moray area are above normal for the time of year which reflects the higher-than-average rainfall in this area over the winter period.

​Loch levels, from our monitoring points, are generally normal for this time of year, with some stations in the far north, moray area and central Scotland showing low levels.  

What do the map colours mean?

Very high	High	Normal range	Low	Very low
Dark blue	Light blue	Light green	Light orange	Dark orange

Flow, rainfall and groundwater data are accessed via SEPA's time series data service (API). SEPA's live data are subject to ongoing quality control and periodic review.
Scottish Water are responsible for public water supply and distribution in Scotland.  Scottish Water reports on the raw water stored in these supplies.

Report copyright

• Current water scarcity levels - © SEPA. Some features of this information are based on digital spatial data licensed from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology © NERC (CEH). Contains OS data © Crown copyright (and database right).
• Areas of significant water scarcity - OS Data - © Crown Copyright - SEPA licence number 100016991 (2022)
• Rainfall, river flow, groundwater and loch levels - Base map © OpenStreetMap contributors.
• Soil moisture deficit - Data based on MORECS (Met Office © Crown Copyright). Some features of this information are based on digital spatial data licensed from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology © NERC (CEH). Contains OS data © Crown copyright (and database right). Base map © OpenStreetMap contributors.
• Weather forecast  - Crown copyright [2022], Met Office