Once again a Guardian headline casually and lazily misinforms its readers:

“Scottish households urged to cut water use as climate crisis limits supplies – Scottish Water boss says average Scot uses 40% more water than people in Yorkshire partly due to mistaken belief water is abundant in Scotland”.

In reality, the article is a puff piece for Scottish Water’s net zero credentials, and is a less than subtle piece of propaganda to try to encourage its customers to use less water, because that will help it to save money:

…In an interview with the Guardian, Plant said that Scottish Water, which supplies nearly all Scotland’s homes and businesses, faced spending up to £50bn by 2050 to adapt the country’s water and sewage networks for the impacts of the climate crisis.

But significant voluntary action by consumers would cut that deficit and the £50bn bill, most of which would need to come from households and industry, because Scottish Water’s ability to borrow money is significantly constrained by its public ownership rules….

The article contains a lot of speculation about what problems a future climate crisis might cause, and tells us that “Scotland already has a deficit of 60m litres a day during droughts, but by 2050, that deficit could hit 240m litres a day.”

It also tries to suggest that the drought-ridden climate crisis is already here, by pointing out that Scotland has had its driest spring since….1964. And that’s all there is in the way of substantiation for the headline claim that the climate crisis is limiting Scottish water supplies. Is the claim justified? I had my doubts, given how much rain I experience when I venture north of the border to climb a few hills. I thought I should check the data to find out. Here is the Met Office rainfall data for Scotland.

As can be seen, it goes back to 1836, and so it covers just over a decade short of two centuries. This spring saw 204.3mm of rain, which is rather more than the 196.3mm recorded in 2001, the 187.8mm recorded in 1984, the 150.3mm recorded in 1980, and the 159.8mm recorded in 1974, so the article’s claims fall at the first hurdle. Strangely, given the 1964 claim, that year saw quite a wet spring, with rainfall of 279mm recorded by the Met Office, though 1963/4 did see a dry winter. Not that this fact helps the Guardian, because the winter just gone saw 425mm of rain. That’s more than in 2019, 2017, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2006, 2003 and so on – you get the picture.

In case any climate alarmists think I’m cherry picking (I’m not), let’s look at annual rainfall. 1836 saw an annual rainfall figure of 1,500.6mm, which isn’t much different from 2024’s figure of 1,551.7mm. The decade before that has seen annual figures between 1,397.5mm (2021) and 1,837.6mm (2015), with no discernible trend. The driest year in the record (at 954.6mm) is 1855. Indeed, the mid half of the 19th century seems to have been much drier in Scotland than of late, with eleven years showing rainfall below 1,200mm up to 1857. The last time the Met Office recorded less than 1,200mm of rainfall in Scotland was in 1941.

Climate crisis limits water supplies in Scotland? Pull the other one.

17 Comments

  1. Oh Mark, you and your data! When are you going to learn that theories and narratives are all that matters?

    Liked by 1 person

  2. John R, did you forget to mention the all-important models? Or are we to infer that the models simply encode the theories in mathematical form and therefore add nothing new? Except, of course, that the models can then be run to ‘prove’ the theory in the best form of circular reasoning. Regards, John C.

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  3. John C,

    Don’t get me started on models!

    In the meantime, here is a piece of data that may be germane. Every day, Yorkshire Water (who have just introduced a hosepipe ban and are exhorting everyone to do their bit) wastes the equivalent of four buckets of water per person every day, due to leaks in its distribution network. It’s true, I saw it on the telly this morning.

    Liked by 2 people

  4. Johns R and C. I simply couldn’t believe that the Guardian could publish a piece that was so inaccurate, so far as official data is concerned.

    Thinking about it, I suspect it was a puff piece to support Scottish Water’s push for meters. Even allowing for that, however, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for the Guardian editors to ensure they have their basic facts right.

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  5. As a river fisherman in Scotland one of the things we learned quite quickly was if there was a good covering of snow in the mountains going into spring the river levels would stay at a good level with a slow release of melt water. This was also true for the fishable reservoirs , rainy winters tended to cause spate conditions with the rivers going up and down with every deluge but the reservoirs still trapped the run off. Looking at rainfall observations we have not had drought conditions by any means i.e. April 20 days of precipitation ranging from fog to heavy rain, May 15 days, and June only 1 dry day . We are to get 3 more days of sun then back to rain Tuesday next week.

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  6. According to Scottish Water’s website:

    Leakage is the volume of water escaping from our pipes each day. It is measured in millions of litres per day (Ml/d).  Over the last 18 years, Scottish Water has reduced leakage from 1104ML/d to 462ML/d, and continues to target leakage.

    I suspect that this is the main issue in Scotland.

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  7. Now the Guardian is doing the same for England, but at least its concluding paragraphs tell the real story:

    “England’s reservoirs at lowest level for a decade as experts call for hosepipe bans

    Levels even lower than in severe drought year of 2022, data shows, with water firms urged to ‘be proactive’”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/12/england-reservoirs-lowest-level-for-decade-hosepipe-bans

    …Last year the government and water companies announced proposals to build nine new reservoirs by 2050. No major reservoirs have been completed in England since 1992, shortly after the water sector was privatised.

    A Water UK spokesperson said: “Water companies do everything possible to avoid restrictions on customers, including by moving water around their region and surging activity on leakage. However, when government-mandated trigger levels are reached then unfortunately a temporary use ban needs to be imposed.”

    A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesperson said: “Rapid population growth, crumbling infrastructure and a warming climate mean without urgent action, Britain could run out of drinking water. We have taken swift and decisive action to secure £104bn of private sector investment to build nine reservoirs and new pipes to cut leaks.”

    The UK population has increased by 12 million people since a major reservoir was last built in England.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Here’s your drought-ridden climate crisis in Scotland:

    Annual

    Dry spring?

    Yes, springs have been getting drier since the mid 1990s, but they get naturally wetter and drier over decades and they’re still wetter than they were in the 1930s/40s and much wetter than they were during the mid 19th century.

    Spring

    Summer, no real trend, whereas Scottish winters have become a lot wetter since the 1960s:

    Summer

    Winter

    Anyone would think the water in Scotland falls out of the sky. Oh, it does, and it settles in Scottish lochs (natural reservoirs) where it can just be pumped out and used. Fake news Guardian.

    Liked by 3 people

  9. I assume the Guardian will be actively campaigning against the suggestion by some UN high-ups that climate disinformation should be criminalised. If that idea ever becomes UK law the Guardian will be in deep trouble!

    Liked by 1 person

  12. The BBC is at it again:

    “Rivers at critical level as Scotland’s water supplies feel the strain”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0qly7g9pepo

    …Part of the problem, he goes on, is Scotland’s relationship with rain, and the perception that in a land of more than 30,000 freshwater lochs, water must surely be abundant.

    This, insists Dr Rebecca Wade, senior lecturer in environmental science at Abertay University in Dundee, is simply not the case.

    “Our climate is changing which means that sometimes we have a lot less water than we’re used to having,” she explains….

    Except that, as I showed in my article above, that isn’t really true. I suspect this offers a better explanation:

    …Not only are we using more water, says Dr Wade, but “as our climate gets drier our industries and our agriculture are needing to draw on more water – so it exacerbates the situation….

    Liked by 1 person

  13. The BBC is slavering over a “hottest ever summer” story:

    “Summer 2025 ‘almost certainly’ UK’s hottest on record”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/articles/c1kz18d3wjro

    However, the reason I am posting it here is this:

    …Central, eastern and southern parts of England have been exceptionally dry while northern and western areas of the UK – especially Scotland – have been much wetter….

    Do BBC editors cross-check articles, I wonder?

    Liked by 1 person

  14. Remember the Guardian headline?

    ““Scottish households urged to cut water use as climate crisis limits supplies…”

    Hmm. How does this work, then?

    “Wetter weather ‘perfect’ for growing Scottish truffles, scientists say”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g0x2x3e00o

    …Experts from the University of Stirling are growing truffles on the west coast of Scotland and say the change to wetter summer weather provides the perfect environment for the crop.…

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  15. “Scottish data centres powering AI already using enough water to fill 27 million bottles a year”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c77zxx43x4vo

    Data centres powering artificial intelligence (AI) in Scotland are using enough tap water to fill 27 million half-litre bottles a year, according to data obtained by BBC News.

    AI systems such as the large language models (LLMs) that power OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini require warehouses full of specialist computers.

    The equipment is power-hungry, consuming large amounts of energy, but they also use tonnes of water in their cooling systems to stop the servers overheating.

    Freedom of Information data shows the volume of tap water used by Scotland’s data centres has quadrupled since 2021….

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Mark – from that article –

    “”The BBC understands that the majority of data centres in Scotland currently use “open loop” systems, which need a constant supply of mains water. However, the industry is moving to towards more efficient methods such as “closed loop”, meaning they would recirculate a fixed amount of water. Mr Lindsay said: “Open loop systems use enormous amounts of water.

    “We’re working with developers on a case-by-case basis to explore sustainable water sources to reduce demand on public drinking water.”

    He said closed-loop cooling systems could increase energy use so Scottish Water were encouraging open-loop systems near wastewater treatment works. These would use treated effluent to supply the volumes of water needed and minimise energy use.”

    This made me think of How Liquid-cooled PCs Work | HowStuffWorks

    Surely some system like that could be used, rather than “a constant supply of mains water”?

    Am I missing something?

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  17. dfhunter,

    It certainly seems to be (unnecessarily? problematic. My main purpose in linking to that article was to make the point that simplistic claims (not borne out by Met Office data) that climate change is leading to water shortages in Scotland have no merit. As so often proves to be the case, even though there may be multiple factors at play, climate change will always get the blame.

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