Most NFM projects will require funding for the material and labour required to implement works on the ground. Large scale projects such as river restoration will also require funding for the necessary scoping and pre-works assessments and design and, in some cases, a payment to the landowner for the services provided and costs incurred. There are a number of potential sources of funding for these various components including the Scottish Rural Development Programme, Government agency funding such as peatland action and private funding such as carbon offset schemes. Local Authorities may also fund NFM measures, especially where it helps to deliver NFM actions outlined in their Local Flood Risk Management Plans or other statutory targets. This topic includes information on these potential funding sources, new funding calls or success stories on novel funding sources.
The Building with Nature (BwN) project, funded by Interreg, demonstrated BwN solutions that utilise natural processes to deliver flood risk and coastal erosion management whilst enhancing ecosystem services. The Scottish Government led the 'catchments' work package and the Eddleston catchment was the Scottish case study example. The project has developed an extensive list of outputs which are available from the link below.
Scotland's Flood Risk Management Conference 2021 was held from the 1st - 5th February 2021. The conference was virtual this year and covered a range of topics such as finance and green recovery, science and policy updates and communication and engagement. The conference organisers (Sniffer) have now published the conference outputs on their website. It is possible to see the virtual presentations or view them on a Vimeo channel. All outputs can be access via the link below.
A conference report highlighting key messages from the Scottish Flood Risk Management Conference 2020 has been published by Sniffer. The conference included a session on Natural Flood Management. The report contains links to audio sound recordings and video interviews.
The Tweed Forum, Scottish Government and SEPA are partners in the EU Interreg Building with Nature project. The project’s Policy Learning Group (PLG) has produced a series of country specific policy briefs. You may be interested in these Scottish policy papers written by Prof. Jim Hansom and Dr Alistair Rennie (coastal) and Prof.
The NERC NFM research programme is advertising a series of webinars. These one hour webinars occur roughly every month and cover a range of topics. The aim of the webinar series is to allow NFM researchers and practitioners to share knowledge and experiences. Registration is required in advance. For more details on future webinars or to view past webinars please visit the link below.
The Interreg BwN (Building with Nature)/FAIR /C5a end event 'Be Adaptive to Become Resilient' was held on the 4th June 2020. Over 150 people attended the online event. The recordings and presentations from the webinars and workshops are now available online (see link below). The event included keynote speeches by Kerstin Brunnström (President of the CPMR North Sea Commission) and Steve Mathies (Global practice leader on Coastal Restorations at Stantec).
The European Environment Agency has recently published a report on the importance of floodplains (report title: "Floodplains: a natural system to preserve and restore"). The report highlights the importance of natural and restored floodplains for managing flood risk and supporting other ecosystem services. A pdf of this report can be accessed via the link below.
A co-organised event in Edinburgh (May 2019) brought together international experts to discuss the challenges and opportunities for delivering Nature-Based Solutions. The goal of the event was to facilitate the knowledge exchange and share best practices between international researchers, practitioners and policymakers. One of the project partners involved in the event, LAND4FLOOD, have produced a short report on the event (link below).
A handbook on Nature-Based Solutions has been published by "ThinkNature" (https://platform.think-nature.eu/). The handbook was developed as part of the ThinkNature project which recieved funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. The main purpose of the handbook is to gather and promote current knowledge surrounding Nature-Based Solutions . The handbook looks at different aspects of Nature-Based Solutions (e.g. project devlopment, financing, policy making) through a number of informative chapters.
An open access book has recently been published addressing the issue of Nature-Based Flood Risk Management on Private Land. It is published by Springer and was edited by Thomas Hartmann, Lenka Slavíková and Simon McCarthy. The authors highlight that knowledge from many different disiplines will be required to deliver Nature-Based Solutions on private land. Therefore, the book highlights a number of international case studies and gives a different disciplinary perspectives (via a commentry) on each case. The book can be accessed from the link below.