Wick and Thurso ‘Significant Water Scarcity’ warning
The River Helmsdale area has been assigned Significant Water Scarcity status by SEPA (Scottish Environment Protection Agency).
It follows a warning issued last week that the alert level could be raised as dryer than normal conditions continue.
The Wick river catchment remains at Moderate Water Scarcity level, though SEPA said this would be raised to Significant Scarcity within the next week in Wick and Thurso catchment areas if river flows remain very low.
They said: “The River Helmsdale area has increased to Significant Water Scarcity due to prolonged very low river flows in the area.
“When an area reaches Significant Water Scarcity we consider additional action to protect the environment.
“In this instance, no additional steps are required because the authorised abstractions in this area return all their abstracted water a short distance downstream of the abstraction point.
“Where action is required to protect the environment, restrictions would be for the minimum time necessary and would be lifted as soon as possible.”
And they added: “Further rain is forecast in the coming week, however well above average rainfall will be required for water scarcity levels to recover after such a prolonged dry period, especially in the parts of the country where rainfall has been limited in the previous weeks.
“The east of Scotland has seen its second driest spring in 100 years and there are some parts of the east coast that have had below average for the last 12 months.”