From local solutions to catchment-wide management: an investigation of upstream-downstream trade-offs when scaling out nature-based flood risk management

Natural flood management (NFM) is a nature-based solution (NbS) widely recognised as an option to regulate flooding whilst providing multiple ecosystem services (ES) for society and the environment. To address climate change-enhanced flood risk, localised-NFM could be scaled out (expanded geographically to the catchment level). Implementing catchment-scale NFM will not only change landscape appearance but also give rise to potential ES trade-offs between the ‘providers’ of upstream land for flood regulation and the ‘beneficiaries’ of reduced flooding downstream. This paper presents a live case study of four river catchments in the UK, where a multi-agency-funded collaborative project is implementing integrated, catchment-scale NFM to work with downstream urban flood defences. Assessment of the views of upstream-downstream catchment communities is limited. Utilising five focus groups (n = 17 participants) we investigate the potential misalignments or synergies between catchment communities that will provision or benefit from NFM that could either derail or support scaling out initiatives. Results reveal that upstream and downstream participants hold strong affinities to contemporary rural landscape aesthetics, expressing sympathies with tasking farmers with delivering flood regulation ES when their traditional vocation is to deliver provisioning ES. Participants also exhibited resistance to landscape change caused by NFM. Nevertheless, acceptability of scaling out NFM increased when aesthetic preferences were considered, especially in provider regions, while beneficiaries prioritised more effective NFM measures over appearance. Inclusive discussion and knowledge exchange (e.g. personal stories, catchment visualisations) in the focus groups facilitated greater appreciation of whole catchment community values and understanding for scaling out NFM.