Towards Catchment Scale Natural Flood Management: Developing evidence, funding and governance approaches

Abstract

Natural flood management is emerging as a viable way to leverage ecological services to manage flooding. Stakeholders are progressively positioning natural flood management at the scale of river catchments to encourage a move beyond localised and opportunistic actions towards more strategic and cost‐effective flood risk management responses. This reflects a broader turn towards nature‐based solutions, acknowledgement of the climate change adaptation imperative, and recognition that natural flood management can achieve multiple socio‐economic and biophysical co‐benefits. A particular set of issues connected to the specific characteristics of natural flood management are influencing attempts to move towards the catchment scale. This paper identifies evidence, funding and governance as key to understanding the challenges facing natural flood management in this context, with these issues providing a focus for the identification of strategies to move towards catchment scale outcomes. A case study exploring the Irwell catchment in Northwest England provides empirical insights on these themes and identifies approaches that can support the transition towards catchment scale natural flood management. This paper calls for wider implementation of experimental approaches in this field focused on multi‐faceted evaluation, blended financing and strategic intermediaries to help overcome overarching evidence, funding and governance challenges to making this transition.