
The Allt a' Mharcaidh catchment
A month ago I travelled to the Cairngorms for a high-level walk around the Allt a’ Mharcaidh catchment. The Allt a’ Mharcaidh is a relatively small river in the north-western Cairngorm mountains and is a tributary of the Spey, joining it at Kincraig via the river Feshie.
The catchment (or drainage basin, or watershed) of the Allt a’ Mharcaidh is relatively small (compared to other rivers in the Cairngorms like the Spey or the Dee) but is notable as it was chosen a couple of decades ago by the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute in Aberdeen as a sample upland mountain catchment for scientific study, and much hydrological research has been done into the soil and water chemistry of the catchment, and also the effects of precipitation and snowmelt on the hydrology of the catchment – see this page here for much detail about this.
Read more »