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Water scarcity report - 16 October 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

The next few days will be largely dry, with only occasional light rain possible around coastal areas, particularly in the north and east. From late Saturday into Sunday, conditions will become more unsettled as rain spreads northeast across Scotland, bringing the chance of some heavy downpours. The Northern Isles will see patchy rain through much of Sunday, before more persistent rain arrives later and continues into Monday. Further south, outbreaks of rain are also expected to persist through Monday.

Advice for water users

Farmers and businesses in parts of northeast Scotland are facing water scarcity restrictions following prolonged dry weather that has caused areas to reach Significant Water Scarcity. For further information visit Significant water scarcity guidance and 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.

Much of the country has seen normal conditions over the last month, although parts of the northeast have experienced largely quite dry to dry conditions. Rivers have been very low in Orkney and across much of the northeast and southeast of Scotland. Meanwhile, much of the north, west and southwest have experienced normal to very high river flows.

Over the last three months, Moray and Aberdeenshire have been extremely dry. The wider northeast area, much of the Central Belt and the northern isles have been dry to very dry. Elsewhere, conditions have varied between normal and dry, with wet conditions more prevalent in the west. Rivers have shown an east-west split, with generally low to extremely low flows in much of the east, but normal to very high flows in the west.

Over the last six months, the east of Scotland has been mainly quite dry to very dry, with extremely dry conditions in the northeast. The west has experienced mostly normal to very wet conditions. Rivers again show an east-west split, with extremely low flows across the east and north of the country and normal to very high flows across much of the west of Scotland. 

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 recent 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. 

Groundwater levels remain very low in Aberdeenshire, Angus and Fife, with three further monitoring boreholes recording their lowest levels on record (Scotlandwell in Fife (27-year record); Prop of Ythsie and Redmoss in the Ythan catchment (both 17-year records)).

Despite the recent rainfall, levels are expected to remain low in these areas throughout the autumn. Longer term recovery will depend upon the amount of recharge over the winter period.

September average loch levels are generally very high in the west of Scotland and very low in the north-east and north.

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