6.1 INTRODUCTION: THE NATURE OF THE RESOURCE

Scotland is richly endowed with freshwater resources as a result of its wet maritime climate (Figs 6.1 & 6.2).

The richness of that endowment can be conveyed, at least partially, via the basic ‘vital statistics’ of the resource (Maitland et al. 1994). There are some 31,000 lochs and almost 7,000 river systems with a combined length of over 50,000 km (Ferrier and Edwards 2002), and comprising perhaps 109,000 streams. Water covers 2 per cent of the country, 5 per cent of the Highlands and Islands, and 10 per cent of the Western Isles. In a UK context, Scotland takes most of the water resource ‘prizes’. Of the freshwater bodies, it has the largest (Loch Lomond: 71 km), the longest (Loch Awe: 41 km) and the deepest (Loch Morar: 310 m). Scotland has 91 per cent of the volume of standing freshwater in Britain, and, remarkably, the volume of Loch Ness alone (7,452M m) exceeds the combined volume of all the lakes and reservoirs in England and Wales. The 193 km-long River Tay has an average flow of 169 cumecs (cubic metres per second), greater than any other UK river, while the River Spey has the largest intact area of floodplain wetland in Britain – the Insh Marshes (Fig. 6.2b) – and probably the largest floodplain forest. A final characteristic feature, especially in northern Scotland, is large areas of ecologically valuable wetlands and peat-forming mires.