Scotland’s State of the Environment Report, 2014 Editors: Nathan Critchlow-Watton, Karen Dobbie, Rebecca Bell, Seamus G. Campbell, Daniel Hinze, Alan Motion, Karen Robertson, Marie Russell, James Simpson, Des Thomson, Willie Towers 2014 State of the Environment Report; for most recent edition see www.environment.scotland.gov.uk 1 Scotland’s State of the Environment Report, 2014 Copyright © 2014 Scotland’s Environment Web. All rights reserved. First ebook edition printed 2014 in the United Kingdom. A catalogue record for this ebook is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-0-9930734-0-3 Published by Scotland’s Environment Web www.environment.scotland.gov.uk For more copies of this ebook, please email: [email protected] Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this ebook, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of this information contained herein. This report should be cited as: Critchlow-Watton, N., Dobbie, K.E., Bell, R., Campbell, S.D.G., Hinze, D., Motion, A., Robertson, K., Russell, M., Simpson, J., Thomson, D. and Towers, W. (eds) 2014. Scotland’s State of the Environment Report, 2014. Scotland’s Environment Web. http://www.environment.scotland.gov.uk/ 2014 State of the Environment Report; for most recent edition see www.environment.scotland.gov.uk 2 Index 1 Introduction 4 1.1 What is the State of the Environment Report? 4 1.2 State and trends assessments 5 1.3 Who wrote this? 6 1.4 Downloads 6 2 Key Messages – State of the environment Summary 7 3 Air 9 3.1 Air quality 11 4 Water 21 4.1 Coastal Waters 24 4.2 Estuaries 35 4.3 Freshwater lochs 44 4.4 Offshore waters 52 4.5 Rivers and canals 60 4.6 Aquaculture 70 4.7 Estuaries and Coastal wildlife 78 4.8 Rivers and lochs wildlife 87 5 Land 95 5.1 Landscape 98 5.2 Rocks and landforms 107 5.3 Soils 113 5.4 Wetlands 124 5.5 Crops and livestock 131 5.6 Fossil fuels and minerals 140 5.7 Timber and forestry products 147 5.8 Farmland wildlife 155 5.9 Mountains and uplands wildlife 163 5.10 Woodlands and forests wildlife 169 6 Climate 178 6.1 Climate 179 7 People and the environment 189 7.1 Benefits from the environment 191 7.2 Cities, towns and greenspace 194 7.3 Historic environment 202 7.4 Recreation 210 7.5 Energy 218 7.6 Land use strategy 228 7.7 Waste 231 A Appendix 238 A.1 Scotland’s Environment partners 238 A.2 Editorial Group 242 A.3 Authors and contributors 246 A.4 State and trend assessors 248 2014 State of the Environment Report; for most recent edition see www.environment.scotland.gov.uk 3 1 Introduction Scotland’s State of the Environment Report is published on Scotland’s Environment Website. It is a web based document which provides an assessment of the state of Scotland’s environment and how it is changing. The report evolves through time as new information becomes available. For most sections it is updated at least once a year. However, it is important to take stock every few years and provide a snapshot of the state of the environment at that time. This document is a pdf version of the State of the Environment Report as it stands on 31 December 2014. As well as hosting the State of Environment Report, Scotland's Environment website provides access to data and information held and managed by a wide range of organisations across Scotland so that it is easily available and in a usable form. The website is the result of an innovative partnership between a wide range of organisations involved in environmental protection and improvement in Scotland. It is funded by the EU Life+ programme and SEPA. The partners are listed in Appendix A.1. 1.1 What is the State of Environment Report? The 2014 State of the Environment Report provides an assessment of Scotland’s environment and how it is changing. It uses the most recent data available from a wide range of sources. It was written by authors from different environmental organisations, and was overseen by an Editorial Group. The editors, authors and contributors are listed in Appendix A2 & A3. The Editorial Group aims for the report to be: • impartial; • trustworthy and evidence-driven; • engaging, inviting and accessible; • open to challenge. We hope that you will be able to find the information you need. The overall key messages are provided, and there are five main chapters:- • Air; • Land; • Water; • Climate; • People and the Environment. Every chapter has a summary and a range of individual topics, each covering part of the environment. In each topic we describe the condition (state) of that part of the environment and how it is changing. We assess the pressures causing the changes and consider what is being done to solve any problems. For many of the topics, we brought together a group of specialists to summarise the state and trends, and their assessments are shown at the start of each topic. As with any scientific report, we are limited by the available evidence and as a result there may be gaps in our coverage of some environmental issues. We have referenced all the major points by providing links to sources of information and data, so you can check the facts yourself. In some topics there are links to relevant “Discover Data” applications, where you can interrogate the data at first hand. We’d like your help to shape future versions of the report. On the website every page has a link to where you can submit comments; we encourage you to question anything you don’t understand, and challenge anything you don’t believe to be true. 2014 State of the Environment Report; for most recent edition see www.environment.scotland.gov.uk 4 1.2 State and Trend Assessment The assessments of the state and trend are shown as a series of spectrum diagrams. These show the current condition of the environment covered by each topic as well as the future trend for that environment. We report how confident we are in these assessments based on the level of agreement between the specialists who took part (high, medium or low agreement) and the evidence available to form that assessment (high, medium or low evidence). The specialists who took part are listed in Appendix A.4. How the assessments were made We contacted specialists with knowledge of each topic and asked them to take part in the assessments. The specialists came from a range of organisations across Scotland, including universities, public organisations, the Scottish Government, local authorities and research institutes. We asked the specialists to independently complete a survey to identify the main pressures affecting the environmental topics they were contributing to. They also assessed the current state of those aspects of the environment, based on the Brundtland Commission definition of sustainability: “development which meets the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. The future trend was generally assessed for the time period in which current human activity is likely to have a strong impact. These independent assessments were collated and a meeting was held for each topic, during which the pressures, state and trend were discussed. The groups then agreed on the final assessment and their level of confidence in the result. Critique of the approach These assessments provide a comprehensive review of the state of the Scottish environment and make use of the available evidence and expertise. However, any overall assessment is necessarily a simplification. Assessments are of the current “average state”; some aspects of the environment covered by a topic will be in a better state, and others worse. Equally, the condition of some areas is improving, while others are worsening or staying the same. We have taken account of the scale of any damage to the environment in these assessments; impacts can be locally damaging, but may have little effect on a national scale. 2014 State of the Environment Report; for most recent edition see www.environment.scotland.gov.uk 5 The assessments are based on the agreement between the specialists who took part; other specialists may have different opinions. 1.3 Who wrote this? The State of the Environment Report contains many topics, each of them written by a lead author, with contributions from other experts. The authors and contributors are listed in Appendix A.3. The Editorial Group oversaw the production of the report. Our members represent a number of organisations and a range of skills and experience. We are responsible for ensuring the text is consistent, balanced and accurate. You can read more about us in Appendix A.2. For many of the topics, an assessment of the current state and the future trend was made. Section 1.2 State and trend assessments explains how this was done. Over 90 specialists took part in the assessment process and came to an agreement on the state and trend of each aspect of the environment. Therefore, the assessment may not fully represent the views of any particular individual. The specialists who took part are listed in Appendix A.4. We are grateful to all who took part and helped to produce the State of the Environment Report. 1.4 Downloads You can download pdf versions of the 2014 and 2011 State of the Environment Report from Scotland’s Environment website. The key messages for the 2014 State of Environment Report are available in Gaelic.