River Almond, Lothian

The River Almond (Scottish Gaelic: Abhainn Amain) is a river in Lothian, Scotland. It is 28 miles (45 km) long, rising at Hirst Hill in Lanarkshire near Shotts and running through West Lothian, draining into the Firth of Forth at Cramond, Edinburgh. The name Almond/Amon is simply old Celtic for "river". The river has a good example of an ox-bow lake near Almondvale West at Livingston.

Running through what were, for much of the 20th century, areas dominated by heavy industry and shale and coal mining, the River Almond has been notorious for its high levels of pollution. With the demise of mining and heavy industry in Central Scotland the river is now relatively clean and is being actively repopulated by wildlife, including a healthy population of brown trout and improving runs of both Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) and sea trout (Salmo trutta). There is a good array of birds to be seen around the river banks, including dippers, kingfishers and grey herons, with increasing numbers of otters being reported. The river is still the primary means of transporting southern West Lothian's waste water to the sea. While the introduction of a number of water treatment plants have helped to mitigate the effects of pollution, the river still suffers from high levels of detergent pollution along with run-off from agricultural land. This has led to the river often having a distinct "chemical odour". This is most noticeable within Almondell and Calderwood Country Park, where there is a major outfall from the nearby East Calder treatment plant.

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