Shetland Amenity Trust and local contractor Sean Mackenzie have recently been working on a peatland restoration project funded Scottish Water at the Sandy Loch.
In Shetland about half the land surface is covered in peat and the catchment for the Sandy Loch reservoir just outside Lerwick is predominantly peat. The loch provides drinking water for Lerwick and much of the Shetland Mainland but areas of bare eroding peat and erosion gullies on the surrounding hillsides in the loch catchment mean treatment is needed to remove the brown colour from the water. This project tackled an area of about 1 ha of bare peat at the north end of the loch. The eroding peat was transformed into bog pools and re- planted with bog vegetation including Sphagnum mosses. Scottish Water carried out additional water sampling during the works and no additional peat load was detected. The restoration will improve the water quality, enhance the resilience of the peatland catchment to climate change and mean less need for chemical water treatment.
Scottish Water is providing 1.34 billion litres of fresh drinking water every day to its customers. This peatland restoration project is a first for Scottish Water so we were delighted to have been involved.
Sandy Loch: top - before and bottom - after
