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• We surveyed UK stakeholders views on Natural Flood Management (NFM) • If, how and who pays for NFM is the most contested topic. • We find widespread interest in NFM but as yet little evidence of a paradigm shift. • Views on NFM highlight challenges for this and other Nature-Based Solutions (NBS). • There is a need to debate rights/responsibilities linked with land management. An exemplar of nature-based solutions (NBS) is natural flood management (NFM), for which interest is growing worldwide. As with many NBS, implementing NFM requires the participation of support of multiple stakeholders. However, we lack understanding about the views and expectations of the many stakeholders who might be expected to enable or implement it. Understanding such views may offer insights regarding whether and how the dominant flood risk management protection paradigm is really being challenged. Using the first survey (N = 118) across a range of water and environmental management stakeholders in the United Kingdom (UK), this research explores whether there is support for a paradigm shift to "work with nature" as intended with NBS. We find evidence that some stakeholders view NFM as a "no-brainer"; a judgement based on perceived cost-effectiveness, social and environmental benefits and the failure of the protection paradigm exposed in recent floods. Others, typically farmers and landowners, have more cautious views about change. All our respondents generally agree that responsibility to enable, implement, and fund NFM should be shared across society, but disagreements remain about the detail and the basis for any enabling payments. We argue that the shared perception of roles and responsibilities provides a foundation for further work to facilitate NFM, explicitly considering principles and specific contractual details. In the UK, the possibilities of post-Brexit agri-environment policy make such a debate particularly pertinent. It is also likely to be productive in many other cases and places, since the paradigm shift entailed by ideal visions of NBS often entails new relationships between stakeholders and new activities 'on the ground'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• As soft FRM (sFRM) is more widely implemented, this brings in social elements. • Underlying social processes (SPs) can strengthen sFRM, joining-up catchments. • The SPs of Accommodation, Coordination, and Acculturation foster shared objectives. • Inclusive practices of visioning and partnering are key activities for local groups. As climate change erodes current levels of flood protection in the UK and government investment in 'hard' flood risk management (hFRM) is rationed by cost-benefit ratios, the option for many communities at-risk is to implement local 'soft' FRM (sFRM). The frequency of widespread flooding generates an added urgency to understand how to support sFRM. Using a case study and qualitative analysis, we explore social processes (SPs), such as acculturation, that drive stakeholder adaptation to be more flood resilient. We conceptualise the status quo beleaguered by conflict and competition and propose practices of accommodation and cooperation that can support shared objectives and responsibility that strengthen sFRM. Our conceptual model is mapped on a stylised catchment to illustrate how SPs underpin sFRM interventions that join-up the catchment in wholescape thinking. The transferable learning is that there are group behaviours and inclusive practices that can initiate and support local sFRM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing probability of loss and damage to floods is a global concern. Countries are united by an urgent need to reduce flood risk to households, businesses, agricultural land, and infrastructure. As natural and engineered protection erodes with climate change and development pressures, new approaches to flood risk management delivered at the catchment scale that work with nature hold promise. One nature-based solution that aligns with this Special Issue on river flooding is the temporary storage of floodwaters on the floodplain. In many countries, this would involve controlled flooding inland low-lying agricultural land. Designing schemes that farmers and irrigation districts will adopt is essential. To inform future floodplain storage options, we review farm-centred drought management, specifically, agreements that transfer agricultural water to municipalities through fallowing in California, USA and an Australian farm exit scheme. These initiatives reveal underpinning principles around the need to: balance the multiple objectives of the parties, share the benefits and responsibilities, address local impacts and practical guidance on incentive design including the consideration of conditional participation requirements and responding to farmer and public preferences. In terms of funding there is opportunity for blended financing with flood-prone communities, insurers, and conservation charities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A catchment‐based approach to flood risk management (FRM) is gaining prominence in the United Kingdom. It is undertaken with wider awareness of multiple stakeholders, as part of a catchment scale understanding, and, as with other approaches, can visually re‐shape place. Land cover and land management change at this scale also has the potential to reconfigure landscape values and place attachment. Researchers have used qualitative, quantitative, and mapping approaches to understand place attachment. Here we explore secondary data, specifically, we transcribe and code the stories of five Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire residents from the short film, Calder about the December 26, 2015 floods. We find place attachment, identity, and social capital are interconnected and feature strongly in the mitigation and prevention phase, post‐disaster. Our findings suggest better understanding of place attachment can support a more catchment scale approach to FRM policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]