{"id":"scotland-hydrology","slug":"scotland-hydrology","name":"Scotland Hydrology Dataset","description":"Monthly river flow, rainfall and groundwater level for the Scottish national monitoring networks, from SEPA. Closes the gap left by an England-only Environment Agency record.","methodology":"Collected from SEPA’s Kisters KiWIS time series service under the Open Government Licence. Rainfall totals and groundwater levels are taken as SEPA publishes them, monthly. Flow is published only daily, so Hydrionis computes the monthly mean and refuses any month with fewer than twenty days of record rather than averaging a partial month. Stations need ten years of record. Groundwater is water table elevation above Ordnance Datum, not depth below ground.","domains":["river-flow","precipitation","groundwater"],"metricIds":["river-flow-monthly-mean","precipitation-monthly","groundwater-level"],"subjectScope":"Scottish SEPA flow, rainfall and groundwater stations with 10+ years of record","cadence":"monthly","version":"1.0.0","released":"2026-08-25","changelog":[{"version":"1.0.0","date":"2026-08-25","summary":"First release. Scotland moves from a generic country profile to a monitored network.","additions":["Scottish river flow, rainfall and groundwater series."]}],"limitations":["The National River Flow Archive holds a longer and better-controlled Scottish flow record. It was assessed and refused because its licence forbids republication, so this dataset is the best openly redistributable Scottish record rather than the best Scottish record.","Raingauge values are point measurements. Scottish rainfall varies steeply over short distances and a gauge does not describe its surrounding area.","Groundwater coverage is thin — Scotland operates far fewer monitoring boreholes than England or France — and is concentrated in the central belt and the north-east."],"observationCount":293628,"seriesCount":712,"subjectCount":712,"from":1929,"to":2026,"sourceIds":["uk-sepa"],"units":["m","mm","m³/s"],"redistributable":true,"commerciallyReusable":true,"citation":"Hydrionis (2026), Scotland Hydrology Dataset, version 1.0.0. Retrieved from https://hydrionis.com/data/datasets/scotland-hydrology/","downloads":[{"file":"/downloads/observations-river-flow-uk-sepa.csv","format":"CSV","label":"river-flow observations from SEPA (169,297 rows)"},{"file":"/downloads/observations-precipitation-uk-sepa.csv","format":"CSV","label":"precipitation observations from SEPA (118,942 rows)"},{"file":"/downloads/observations-groundwater-uk-sepa.csv","format":"CSV","label":"groundwater observations from SEPA (11,048 rows)"}],"apiPath":"/api/v1/datasets/scotland-hydrology.json","lastFetched":"2026-10-05","fields":[{"id":"river-flow-monthly-mean","name":"Mean monthly river flow","definition":"Average volumetric discharge past a gauging station over a calendar month.","unit":"m³/s","nativeGeography":["river-gauge"],"comparabilityNotes":"A gauge property, not a river property. Strongly seasonal, so compare a month against the same month in other years. Gauge records contain breaks where structures were rebuilt or ratings revised."},{"id":"precipitation-monthly","name":"Monthly precipitation","definition":"Total depth of precipitation falling over a defined area within a calendar month.","unit":"mm","nativeGeography":["monitoring-station","grid-cell"],"comparabilityNotes":"Monthly totals are dominated by seasonality. Compare a month against the same month in other years, or against the long-term average for that month, never against an adjacent month."},{"id":"groundwater-level","name":"Groundwater level","definition":"Elevation of the water table or piezometric surface at a monitoring borehole.","unit":"m","nativeGeography":["borehole"],"comparabilityNotes":"Levels are specific to a borehole and its aquifer, and must be read against that borehole’s own historic range. Absolute elevations from different boreholes are not comparable."}]}