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.

Review of monitoring techniques and sampling strategies to identify the most significant sources of Faecal Indicator Organisms (FIO) within a catchment 

On World Water Day 2019 the Hydro Nation International Centre and Centre of Expertise for Water (CREW) hosted a conference on "Resilience to Drought and Low Flow Conditions in Scotland", an event supported by the Scottish Government.

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.

This output is part of a project titled 'Assessing the effectiveness of environmental improvement measures - developing a toolkit to rank success and inform policy.'

This study looks at what communities at risk of flooding know and feel about Natural Flood Management (NFM). NFM can involve a variety of tools to slow down or store floodwater such as restoring natural river channels, removing flood embankments, planting trees along riverbanks, and blocking upland drains. NFM is a key part of sustainable flood risk management, so understanding attitudes to NFM can help develop approaches for engaging communities in flood risk management.

Native oyster beds (Ostrea edulis) are one of the most endangered marine habitats in Europe, with associated population losses of over 95%, mainly due to overfishing in the 19th and early 20th century. The loss of this keystone species has also meant a loss of oyster reef habitat for other shell and fin fish, and a loss of key ecosystem services for filtration and sequestration of pollutants.

Urban creep, the process of converting gardens and other vegetated areas (which help to soak up rain), to built-up surfaces (which are impervious), is an important factor affecting surface water flood risk.  This project aimed to answer the question, what are the typical rates of urban creep for selected urban areas in Scotland? The project developed a method to map urban creep and applied it to aerial photography for Edinburgh for 1990, 2005 and 2015. This allowed the first city-wide estimates of urban creep to be produced for Scotland. 

The aim of this project was to collate evidence related to prevention-led approaches within catchments, that was of relevance to Scotland and the benefits that they could bring to safeguarding drinking water supplies. This project sought views, nationally and from other EU (and international) countries, on how or what they have learnt from implementing a prevention-led approach. A project workshop focussed on two key pressures on Scottish drinking water supplies: organics (e.g. Dissolved Organic Carbon) and Taste and odour issues.

The main aim of the study was to review and synthesise current knowledge relating to the water environment within the River Leven catchment, including the condition of its rivers, lochs and groundwater.

The study addressed six main research questions.