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Ness water levels

Live levels from 1 monitoring station across Highland, updated every 15 minutes.

1stations
0above typical high

Gauges

Monitoring stations, source to mouth

StationTownLevel nowStatusTrend
Ness-side—1.44 m 12m agoNormal—

Stations are listed from source to mouth as the water flows, traced on the river map (OS Open Rivers) and the Environment Agency’s own links between its gauges. A distance “by river” is along the river, and is shown only where the map traces the path.

Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database rights 2026.

Gauged tributaries

Streams and rivers with a gauge whose water joins the Ness above one of its gauges, from the source down. Named streams without a gauge that have a page here are listed at the end.

5 gauged tributaries, 6 gauges

Coilte

Joins the Ness above Ness-side, its highest gauge, no more than 23.5 km by river above Ness-side.

Ivy Bridge0.35 m 12m agoNormal

Its water passes every gauge on the Ness, from Ness-side down.

Enrick

Joins the Ness above Ness-side, its highest gauge, no more than 29.3 km by river above Ness-side.

White Bridge0.60 m 12m agoNormal
Mill of Tore0.48 m 12m agoNormal

Its water passes every gauge on the Ness, from Ness-side down.

Garry (Ness)

Joins the Ness above Ness-side, its highest gauge, no more than 59.1 km by river above Ness-side.

Craigard0.77 m 12m agoNormal

Its water passes every gauge on the Ness, from Ness-side down.

Moriston

Joins the Ness above Ness-side, its highest gauge, no more than 39.7 km by river above Ness-side.

Levishie0.55 m 12m agoNormal

Its water passes every gauge on the Ness, from Ness-side down.

Tarff

Joins the Ness above Ness-side, its highest gauge, no more than 46.5 km by river above Ness-side.

Ardachy Bridge0.59 m 12m agoNormal

Its water passes every gauge on the Ness, from Ness-side down.

Where the Ness goes

No gauge below Ness-side is known on the river map.

Tributaries and where they join are traced on the river map (OS Open Rivers, edition 2026-04) and the Environment Agency’s links between its gauges. The map holds distances between gauges, not the junctions themselves, so a junction is placed between two gauges, and no further up than the tributary’s own lowest gauge. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database rights 2026.

Streams without a gauge

Named streams on the river map that flow into the Ness and have no gauge of their own. Each has a page with what is known about it: the next gauge downstream, and any storm overflows or water-sampling points placed on it.

Storm overflows upstream

7 storm overflows are traced upstream of Ness-side, the Ness’s lowest gauge on the river map: on the Ness itself, on its gauged tributaries, and on smaller streams that join above there.

  • 0 report discharging now
  • 6 not discharging
  • 1 offline or silent: 1 monitor offline, 0 status unknown, 0 no live feed

Official figures for 2025, for the overflows traced upstream of Ness-side: 50 overflow events over 103 hours in total, across the 3 that have a figure. 1 had no data that year; 3 have no 2025 figure. Scottish Water counts overflow events, not the 12/24-hour spills counted in England and Wales, so this total cannot be set beside theirs.

Each overflow is listed in the stretch above the first gauge its water reaches, from the source down, as on the Gauges tab. A stretch of the Ness includes the smaller streams that join it there.

Above Ness-side, the Ness’s highest gauge7 overflows

A status is the water company’s own monitor: it says whether an overflow is discharging, never how much or why, and a spill does not by itself explain a change in a river level. A status older than two hours is shown as unknown. Annual figures are the official returns: 12/24-hour spills for England and Wales, overflow events for Scotland (Scottish Water counts differently, so the two cannot be compared). “No data” means the monitor produced no usable data that year, not zero. Overflows are placed on OS Open Rivers (edition 2026-04), which leaves out many small channels: an overflow the map cannot place may still drain here. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database rights 2026. Sewage in Britain’s rivers →

Live status: © Scottish Water, near-real-time Overflow Map data, open licence for reuse. EDM monitors indicate overflows; they do not confirm them, and this is not advice on water quality. Annual figures for Scotland: Scottish Water overflow event data, Open Government Licence.