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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]

Cultural ecosystem services (ES) are particularly challenging to value as well as to subsequently incorporate in scientific assessments and environmental management actions and programmes. In this paper, we apply a cultural ES typology to an Australian water resources case at a location of major indigenous cultural significance, the Brewarrina Aboriginal fish traps, and consider the potential implications for water planning. Data from qualitative interviews with indigenous custodians demonstrates diverse cultural values and associated benefits with respect to the fish traps themselves and to their connectivity with another key water site, an upstream lagoon. Supported by additional analyses of water planning legislation, flow requirements, and non-indigenous tourist values, we analyse the applicability of the typology and the implications for water planning. Key issues include: the distinction between values and benefits; whose values and which cultural ES benefits are identified and managed; the challenges of categorising indigenous aspirations within cultural ES frameworks; and the implications for water planning of indigenous perspectives on connectivity. Case studies of culturally specific minorities are useful for testing cultural ES frameworks because they posit conceptual and categorisation challenges. In addition, ‘culture’ is often of strategic and symbolic value for such minorities, representing the key means by which they gain access to, and traction within, natural resource planning and prioritisation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the American southwest, over-allocated water supplies, groundwater depletion, and potential climate change impacts are major water management concerns. It may therefore seem counterintuitive that the resolution of outstanding senior tribal water claims, essentially reallocating finite water supplies to tribes, could support improved water supply reliability for many water users as is the case with the 2004 Arizona Water Settlements Act. The large size of the settlement and its multiple components translate to significant impacts on water policy in Arizona. Key water management solutions incorporated into the settlement and associated legislation have expanded the water manager's 'toolbox' and are expected to enhance water supply reliability both within and outside Arizona's active management areas. Many of these new tools are transferable to water management applications in other states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]