Loch Enoch is a multi-basin loch

Loch

Loch is the Irish and Scottish Gaelic word for a lake or a sea inlet. It has been anglicised as lough, although this is pronounced the same way as loch. Some lochs could also be called a firth, fjord, estuary, strait or bay...

 in Galloway

Galloway

Galloway is an area in southwestern Scotland. It usually refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire...

 to the east of Merrick

Merrick, Galloway

Merrick is the highest mountain in the Southern Uplands of southern Scotland and is part of the Range of the Awful Hand.The shortest route of ascent is from the car park in Glen Trool...

 and south of Mullwharchar. The loch is situated in a granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 basin and has several small islands and some beaches on its shore. The sharp granite sand of these beaches was collected and sold for sharpening knives and scythe

Scythe

A scythe is an agricultural hand tool for mowing grass, or reaping crops. It was largely replaced by horse-drawn and then tractor machinery, but is still used in some areas of Europe and Asia. The Grim Reaper is often depicted carrying or wielding a scythe...

s. The catchment area's vegetation is mainly Purple Moor Grass

Purple Moor Grass

Molinia caerulea is a perennial grass native to Europe, west Asia, and north Africa. It grows in locations from the lowlands up to 2,300 m in the Alps. Like most grasses, it grows best in acid soils, ideally pH values of between 3.5 and 5, however, it can continue to live under more extreme...

 and Heather

Calluna

Calluna vulgaris is the sole species in the genus Calluna in the family Ericaceae. It is a low-growing perennial shrub growing to tall, or rarely to and taller, and is found widely in Europe and Asia Minor on acidic soils in open sunny situations and in moderate shade...

.

The loch's outflow supplies Loch Doon

Loch Doon

Loch Doon is a body of water, in Carrick, Scotland. The River Doon issues from its northern end, while the loch itself receives waters from Loch Enoch via Eglin Lane....

 and the River Doon

River Doon

The River Doon is a river in South Ayrshire, Scotland. The river flows 23 miles from Loch Doon, joining the Firth of Clyde just south of Ayr. Its course is generally north-westerly, passing near to the town of Dalmellington, and through the villages of Patna, Dalrymple, and Alloway, birthplace...

, both in Ayrshire.

Acidification

By 1800 the water of Loch Enoch had already become acidic. J. McBain in his 1929 book The Merrick and the Neighbouring Hills. Tramps by Hill, Stream and Loch describes a trout

Trout

Trout is the name for a number of species of freshwater and saltwater fish belonging to the Salmoninae subfamily of the family Salmonidae. Salmon belong to the same family as trout. Most salmon species spend almost all their lives in salt water...

 that 'bore the unmistakable marks of a Loch Enoch trout, i.e., it was minus the lower half of its tail and part of its ventral fins'. McBain writes that the last recorded trout caught was in 1899.
Since 1940 the loch became more acidic due to industrial emissions

Acid rain

Acid rain is a rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it possesses elevated levels of hydrogen ions . It can have harmful effects on plants, aquatic animals, and infrastructure. Acid rain is caused by emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen...

 and in the 1950s it completely lost its fish population. In 1994 it was restocked with 3000 trout. The loch has not become more acidic since the mid 1970s and has become slightly less acidic from the 1980s onwards, with the pH

PH

In chemistry, pH is a measure of the acidity or basicity of an aqueous solution. Pure water is said to be neutral, with a pH close to 7.0 at . Solutions with a pH less than 7 are said to be acidic and solutions with a pH greater than 7 are basic or alkaline...

 increasing slowly from around 4.3 in 1978 to 4.9 in 2003. Between 1983 and 2003 the loch's DOC levels increased.

Water Analysis

Concentrations of different elements in samples from June 2006

Element	Concentration μg/l
CaCO3 Calcium carbonate Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with the formula CaCO3. It is a common substance found in rocks in all parts of the world, and is the main component of shells of marine organisms, snails, coal balls, pearls, and eggshells. Calcium carbonate is the active ingredient in agricultural lime,...	-500
Li Lithium Lithium is a soft, silver-white metal that belongs to the alkali metal group of chemical elements. It is represented by the symbol Li, and it has the atomic number 3. Under standard conditions it is the lightest metal and the least dense solid element. Like all alkali metals, lithium is highly...	0.297
Al Aluminium Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....	83.9
V Vanadium Vanadium is a chemical element with the symbol V and atomic number 23. It is a hard, silvery gray, ductile and malleable transition metal. The formation of an oxide layer stabilizes the metal against oxidation. The element is found only in chemically combined form in nature...	0.263
Cr Chromium Chromium is a chemical element which has the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in Group 6. It is a steely-gray, lustrous, hard metal that takes a high polish and has a high melting point. It is also odorless, tasteless, and malleable...	0.147
Fe FE Fe or FE may refer to:* Iron * Fe , the f-rune of the Younger Futhark* Fe * Fe * "Fe" , a song by Jorge González...	49.3
Fe DRC	46.4
Mn Manganese Manganese is a chemical element, designated by the symbol Mn. It has the atomic number 25. It is found as a free element in nature , and in many minerals...	6.7
Co Cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element with symbol Co and atomic number 27. It is found naturally only in chemically combined form. The free element, produced by reductive smelting, is a hard, lustrous, silver-gray metal....	0.064
Ni Nickel Nickel is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel belongs to the transition metals and is hard and ductile...	0.348
Cu Copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...	0.247
Zn Zinc Zinc , or spelter , is a metallic chemical element; it has the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is the first element in group 12 of the periodic table. Zinc is, in some respects, chemically similar to magnesium, because its ion is of similar size and its only common oxidation state is +2...	3.14
Se Selenium Selenium is a chemical element with atomic number 34, chemical symbol Se, and an atomic mass of 78.96. It is a nonmetal, whose properties are intermediate between those of adjacent chalcogen elements sulfur and tellurium...	0.178