6.3. The relative importance of different interventions

Figure 7 Priorities for the next 5 years of all organisation types. Respondents were able to select multiple priorities.

6.3. The relative importance of different interventions.

18 actions or interventions were identified during interviews and questionnaire respondents were asked how likely they thought these actions were to make significant improvements to freshwaters.

Almost all interventions received the full range of possible responses from “unlikely” to “very likely” to make significant improvements to freshwaters along with “uncertain/not enough information to assess” (Figure 8). This indicates that there are a variety of views on the relative importance or potential value of interventions. The interventions that were least likely to receive unanimous support were “nutrient offsetting/credits” , “widening access to freshwaters for all” and “water efficiency labelling on products” . The only uncontested intervention was “integrating actions at catchment/landscape scale”. Stronger enforcement of existing legislation or regulations also scored highly suggesting an even stronger lobbying role for NGOs and community groups. As a recurrent theme, place-based “local restoration projects” were highly ranked.