Abstract

<strong class="journal-contentHeaderColor">Abstract.</strong> Natural flood management (NFM) is the name given to nature-based solutions (NBS) for flood management in the UK. It is a holistic flood management technique that employs natural hydrological processes, through the installation of interventions, to slow the flow of water, creating a landscape-scale flood management system. Despite widespread interest and supporting policy from governments and non-profit organisations, NFM, as yet, has not been widely adopted as a mainstream flood management technique. A small number of academic studies examining perceived barriers to NFM adoption have identified a variety of individual factors as being responsible. It is commonly accepted that flood risk management broadly, and NFM specifically, are complex, challenges of interacting physical and human parameters, and that academic, institutional and policy divisions are rarely sympathetic to embracing these complexities. A transdisciplinary problem-framing study in conjunction with professionals experienced in the delivery of NFM projects in the UK aimed to capture these multifaceted parameters of flood management and strategic delivery at a landscape scale using group concept mapping, a systems approach to identify conceptual convergence. This policy-delivery impasse was further explored by quantifying the relative importance of individual barriers and conceptual groupings from the perspective of two different practitioner groups (flood risk managers and conservation practitioners). The results demonstrate that the NFM delivery system can be grouped into seven interacting elements, <i>policy and regulation, politics, public perception, cross-cutting issues, funding, technical knowledge and evidence</i>, of which each has a varying number of barriers that limit NFM uptake. Opinions differ as to the importance of these individual barriers; however, when considering the system broadly we identify that the institutional and social barriers are perceived as the most important, whilst technical knowledge and evidence are the areas of least concern. This paper aims to promote NBS flood management delivery in the UK and globally by generating, structuring and representing the multifaceted and multilevel NFM delivery system at a local level to evidence adaptive decision making at regional, national and global levels. Through problem structuring and an increased understanding and awareness of the structure and network of linking elements and perceived differences of practitioner groups that influence the system of delivery, steps can be taken towards solutions that are socially, scientifically and practically robust.

Highlights

  • In the UK Natural Flood Management (NFM) is the commonly used term for Nature Based Solutions (NBS) for flood management; a holistic flood management technique designed to mimic natural environmental conditions by harnessing 40 hydrological processes to slow water flowing through the landscape (Werritty, 2006)

  • A growing body of literature links social inequalities and living in flood risk zones (Fielding, 2018; Walker and Burningham, 2011) and it is against this backdrop that FCRM or any other organisation interested in expanding NFM to a mainstream flood management strategy must work; this context 425 for delivery of NFM was not identified as a barrier by catchment partnerships

  • The findings of the group concept mapping methodology support the literature on barriers to environmental management policy adoption more widely, that the greatest constraints to change come from socio-organisational factors rather than a lack of technical knowledge, it must be acknowledged 560 that practitioners queried this finding in the interpretation and analysis workshop

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Summary

Introduction

In the UK Natural Flood Management (NFM) is the commonly used term for Nature Based Solutions (NBS) for flood management; a holistic flood management technique designed to mimic natural environmental conditions by harnessing 40 hydrological processes to slow water flowing through the landscape (Werritty, 2006). NFM describes methods that restore (Lane, 2017) or mimic (Barber and Quinn, 2012) hydrological processes within the water cycle, including engineered land forms (Wingfield et al, 2019). The pinnacle of the practice is to link a large number of small interventions through connectivity (Keesstra et al, 2018) to optimise a system functioning at a landscape scale delivering a cumulative catchment wide land and water management strategy. Sectors needed to deliver coordinated activities, 50 at multiple scales, for strategic delivery include urban planning and development, agriculture and conservation, flood and coastal risk management and water and waste water supply and management. To date NFM has not been widely adopted as a mainstream flood management technique (Bark et al, 2021) with some practitioners continuing to regard it as a 55 novel approach (O’Donnell et al, 2017; Schanze, 2017)

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