Challenges to enabling and implementing Natural Flood Management in Scotland

Abstract

We explore factors that constrain implementation of Natural Flood Management (NFM), based on qualitative analysis of interviews with those influencing and enabling flood risk management in Scotland. NFM entails collaboration by multiple individuals and organisations to plan and deliver measures such as remeandering or buffer strips. Our interviewees identified many interacting issues. They particularly focused on difficulties in securing resources, and evidence gaps and uncertainties associated with NFM. Co-ordination was not simple, often requiring new types of skill, expertise, and resources. NFM is thus outside the 'comfort zone' of many leading or engaged with flood risk management. These experiences echo and elaborate on other studies of attempts to encourage sustainable flood management. To tackle these challenges, practitioners should reflect how pre-existing ideas and practices may shape and constrain new approaches to managing floods, while research is needed on specific strategies that can assist in enabling change.

Capturing the multiple benefits associated with nature‐based solutions: Lessons from a natural flood management project in the Cotswolds, UK

“…In western cities, grey infrastructures have often been adopted to also handle runoff water, often resulting in increasing flood risk with highest ‘rate of storm water due to climate change and soil sealing’ (Davis & Naumann, , p. 124). As a consequence of major flood events, climate change adaptation, and societal pressure, a sustainable flood management approach emerged as a ‘philosophy which prioritises risk reduction through a range of measures that can include structural measures, but are more economically and environmentally sustainable than relying on structural measures alone’ (Waylen, Holstead, Colley, & Hopkins, , p. S1078). According to Waylen, Holstead, Colley, and Hopkins (), this new approach includes NFM alongside related terms, such as ‘Making space for the river,’ ‘Working with Natural Processes,’ ‘Working with Nature,’ ‘Ecosystem‐based Flood Risk Management,’ or ‘Engineering with Nature.’ NFM may involve altering multiple elements of a catchment water balance by promoting interception, infiltration, and groundwater storage, enhancing water losses through evapotranspiration, lengthening hydrological pathways, and increasing flow resistance (Forbes, Ball, & McLay, ; Iacob, Rowan, Brown, & Ellis, ).…”

Natural Flood Management: Beyond the evidence debate

“…One of the factors purported to be behind limited adoption of NFM is lack of evidence of its efficacy (Dadson et al., ; Spray et al., ; Waylen et al., ). Dadson et al.…”

“…One of the factors purported to be behind limited adoption of NFM is lack of evidence of its efficacy (Dadson et al, 2017;Spray et al, 2009;Waylen et al, 2017). Dadson et al (2017) cite a lack of demonstrable effects beyond small-scale local benefits, observing that an absence of evidence exists of interventions tested at large scales.…”

“…Traditional flood protection methods of large engineered structures are costly to construct, expensive to maintain and linked to poor water and ecological quality (Collentine & Futter, ; Thorne, ). Policy makers and scientists are increasingly interested in natural landscape retention and storage capacity as a complementary flood risk technique (Ran & Nedovic‐Budic, ) used alongside traditional hard‐engineering flood defence approaches (Pitt, ; Rouillard et al., ; Waylen et al., ). However, this move towards more holistic catchment flood management and natural flood water retention has been hindered by a lack of policy‐relevant research with a diversity of disciplinary inputs from both the physical and human geography traditions.…”

Bringing in the floods : a comparative study on controlled flooding in the Dutch, Bangladesh and Vietnamese deltas

“…Such proposals are intertwined with calls for change in flood management paradigms. There is a broad consensus that shifts from full flood protection to flood risk management strategies have occurred in policy circles (Pahl-Wostl et al, 2011;Waylen, Holstead, Colley, & Hopkins, 2017). Flood risk management interventions can consist of flood prevention infrastructure, but also incorporate spatial planning measures and other ways to reduce flood risks.…”