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Thick with fresh snow, still, clear and very, very cold: winter in Aviemore doesn't get better than this one. At the weekend, the Speyside town was heaving with activity.

Further down the A9 near Blair Atholl, a less funkily-attired clientele keeps the House of Bruar expanding.

A case study in how to make a rural business thrive, its mail order is booming and there's a butcher on the way. There's not much sign of recession here either.

Rural Scotland has avoided the worst of the downturn.

Agriculture, fishing and forestry has kept growing while others contracted sharply. Approvals on bank loan applications have held up much more strongly than other sectors.

Tourism has benefited from the Great British staycation, allied to the weakened pound.

Even in construction, the decline in new house starts across rural Scotland has been much less pronounced than with the urban cousins.

The future already

So with more pressing concerns, it might be tempting to ignore the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats set out this Monday by the Scottish Agricultural Colleges.

In a comprehensive report, Rural Scotland in Focus, it's an important guide and route map to social, economic, climatic and biodiversity changes.

The approach has not been about scaring the horses to make political impact.

It's full of solid evidence and measured analysis, about the bit of Scotland that make up 90% of the land area and includes a million people, or one in five of us.

One message is that some changes the rest of the country see as far off have already arrived in parts of rural Scotland.

The report's editor, Sarah Skerratt said: "We have become so used to issues like climate change being linked to action targets set 10, 20 or 30 years ahead we sometimes feel we have plenty of time.

"But by examining the evidence about rural Scotland more deeply we have shown that, with many rural issues, things are happening now.

"For instance in some parts of the country the population has already aged to levels other parts are not forecast to reach for 10 years or more. We cannot put these things off."

Playing catch-up

But it's too easy to say rural Scotland is de-populating. Indeed, it's pointed out that rural Scotland is much too diverse to be given one-size-fits-all solutions to its problems.

"Accessible rural" Scotland - for instance, within commuting reach of Aberdeen or Edinburgh - has the fastest population growth, including younger adults with families.

There, the problem is more likely to be high house prices. But less accessible is the Isle of Harris, where the demographics make the community look moribund, and teacher salaries may have to give way for care workers.

Another challenging question of whether rural Scotland is doomed always to playing catch-up with the rest of the country on its infrastructure.

Transport is an obvious challenge.

Yet take a contrary look - after hundreds of millions of pounds have been spent on improvements such as bridges, causeways and improved roads, one of the unforeseen consequences is the disappearance of localised services.

An improved road, allied to changes under way in the delivery of healthcare, means the doctor can be located much further away.

Inverness, where more than half of retail spending is in Tesco stores, draws shoppers in from far afield, undermining small town and village shops which were at the heart of communities.

Fuel poverty

Broadband is another obvious problem for many businesses.

I've been told of one Hebridean company that supplies premium shellfish at very premium prices to wholesalers in Spain and France, and has such slow broadband that it can only take orders by fax.

How many offices even have a functioning fax these days?

While there are repeated reminders that the challenges facing rural and urban Scotland may be converging, one of the most striking differences is in fuel poverty.

Off the gas grid, in colder climes and often worse housing, here's a reminder that 37% of rural households are in fuel poverty, spending more than a 10th of their income on household energy. The urban figure is just over a fifth.

Extreme fuel poverty means spending more than 20% of household income on energy.

That's a fact of domestic finance for 16% of rural Scots - roughly three times the level for the cities and towns.

That's surely a case for linking renewable energy developments across rural Scotland to lower social tariffs. It might do something to answer nimbyism.

Challenges ahead include changes to agricultural subsidies.

The single farm payment, a mainstay for many farmers, could be reduced by as much as a third after 2013.

Europe's largesse to farmers is supposed to be on the way down, and the move is already afoot to pay Scottish farmers at least as much for their environmental protection as for producing food.

Communities too parochial?

That environmental question is not just to prettify the views for coach parties and improve hedges for the birdwatching market, but how to prepare and adjust to climate change.

That's a prospect that could hold opportunities as well as threats in a part of the world that could use a degree or two more on the thermometer, but which faces unpredictable effects too, such as more flooding and new agricultural pests.

Then there's a challenge also for the strong consensus that welcomes community involvement in taking over rural estates.

Yes, rural Scots are much more likely to do voluntary work - by a 47% to 29% margin - but do communities have the skills necessary for taking over estates?

Are these run by people who can be as undemocratic, high-handed and parochial as the landowners they replaced?

Are they up to the task and risks of securing and delivering investments in the land and infrastructure? Is the local perspective always the right one, and the outsider always wrong?

Expensively remote

The big and obvious challenge to rural Scotland is shared with the rest of the country, though it could be more acute.

The crunch in public spending could bear down harshly on the relatively expensive delivery of remote and less efficient services.

The report argues that employment levels in public sector jobs are not as high as the national average.

But if rural Scotland is to adjust, how is it to prioritise and get those communities engaged for "rural sustainability and prosperity".

Some big questions for the agenda at the next village hall and community council meeting.

This report, www.sac.ac.uk/rsif, is a good place to start the discussion.