Understanding water user behavior and its potential outcomes is important for the development of suitable water resource management options. Computational models are commonly used to assist water resource management decision making; however, while natural processes are increasingly well modeled, the inclusion of human behavior has lagged behind. Improved representation of irrigation water user behavior within models can provide more accurate and relevant information for irrigation management in the agricultural sector. This paper outlines a model that conceptualizes and proceduralizes observed farmer irrigation practices, highlighting impacts and interactions between the environment and behavior. It is developed using a bottom‐up approach, informed through field experience and farmer interaction in the state of Uttar Pradesh, northern India. Observed processes and dynamics were translated into parsimonious algorithms, which represent field conditions and provide a tool for policy analysis and water management. The modeling framework is applied to four districts in Uttar Pradesh and used to evaluate the potential impact of changes in climate and irrigation behavior on water resources and farmer livelihood. Results suggest changes in water user behavior could have a greater impact on water resources, crop yields, and farmer income than changes in future climate. In addition, increased abstraction may be sustainable but its viability varies across the study region. By simulating the feedbacks and interactions between the behavior of water users, irrigation officials and agricultural practices, this work highlights the importance of directly including water user behavior in policy making and operational tools to achieve water and livelihood security.

The rights all people have for involvement in environmental decision making has long been established yet collaborative resource management has had mixed success. Natural capital; the renewable and non‐renewable natural assets that benefit societies, and the flow of ecosystem services these assets provide, are increasingly promoted as approaches that ensure consideration of the environment in decision making. Natural capital and ecosystem services concepts can facilitate participation in decision making by explicitly describing the role of the environment in sustaining society. Increased promotion of these approaches requires consideration on how best to involve stakeholders, those involved and affected by a decision, in the process. We conducted a systematic search to identify where stakeholders have participated in natural capital, ecosystem services and nature’s contributions to people decision making, creating a systematic map of 56 case studies. While many papers discussing stakeholders and these concepts were found, few actively engaged stakeholders in a decision‐making process that used the concepts and therefore were included in the map. Where stakeholders were involved, engagement methods included focus group discussion, stakeholder negotiation and scenario development, as well as ecosystem service ranking and mapping. Ranking for prioritisation of ecosystem services was common, with a bias towards using services with a direct tangible economic benefit; food production and tourism, are both prominent examples. A limited number of case studies performed robust participatory methods evaluations, offering little indication of how best to use natural capital or ecosystem services in participatory approaches. Therefore, the work highlights need for greater evaluation of participatory processes involving natural capital to ensure stakeholder engagement is efficient, productive and useful to all involved. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Natural capital plays a central role in urban functioning, reducing flooding, mitigating urban heat island effects, reducing air pollution, and improving urban biodiversity through provision of habitat space. There is also evidence on the role played by blue and green space in improving physical and mental health, reducing the burden on the health care service. Yet from an urban planning and development view, natural capital may be considered a nice to have, but not essential element of urban design; taking up valuable space which could otherwise be used for traditional built environment uses. While urban natural capital is largely recognised as a positive element, its benefits are difficult to measure both in space and time, making its inclusion in urban (re)development difficult to justify. Here, using a London case study and information provided by key stakeholders, we present a system dynamics (SD) modelling framework to assess the natural capital performance of development and aid design evaluation. A headline indicator: Natural Space Performance, is used to evaluate the capacity of natural space to provide ecosystem services, providing a semi-quantitative measure of system wide impacts of change within a combined natural, built and social system. We demonstrate the capacity of the model to explore how combined or individual changes in development design can affect natural capital and the provision of ecosystem services, for example, biodiversity or flood risk. By evaluating natural capital and ecosystem services over time, greater justification for their inclusion in planning and development can be derived, providing support for increased blue and green space within cities, improving urban sustainability and enhancing quality of life. Furthermore, the application of a SD approach captures key interactions between variables over time, showing system evolution while highlighting intervention opportunities.

The effects of anthropogenic water use play a significant role in determining the hydrological cycle of north India. This paper explores anthropogenic impacts within the region's hydrological regime by explicitly including observed human water use behaviour, irrigation infrastructure and the natural environment in the CHANSE (Coupled Human And Natural Systems Environment) socio‐hydrological modelling framework. The model is constrained by observed qualitative and quantitative information collected in the study area, along with climate and socio‐economic variables from additional sources. Four separate scenarios, including business as usual (BAU, representing observed irrigation practices), groundwater irrigation only (where the influence of the canal network is removed), canal irrigation only (where all irrigation water is supplied by diverted surface water) and rainfed only (where all human interventions are removed) are used. Under BAU conditions the modelling framework closely matched observed groundwater levels. Following the removal of the canal network, which forces farmers to rely completely on groundwater for irrigation, water levels decrease, while under a canal‐only scenario flooding occurs. Under the rainfed‐only scenario, groundwater levels similar to current business‐as‐usual conditions are observed, despite much larger volumes of recharge and discharge entering and leaving the system under BAU practices. While groundwater abstraction alone may lead to aquifer depletion, the conjunctive use of surface and groundwater resources, which includes unintended contributions of canal leakage, create conditions similar to those where no human interventions are present. Here, the importance of suitable water management practices, in maintaining sustainable water resources, is shown. This may include augmenting groundwater resources through managed aquifer recharge and reducing the impacts on aquifer resources through occasional canal water use where possible. The importance of optimal water management practices that highlight trade‐offs between environmental impact and human wellbeing are shown, providing useful information for policy makers, water managers and users. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The impact of blue and green spaces on wellbeing has been universally acknowledged. However, the meaning of “wellbeing” differs depending on the lens through which it is viewed. The current review of reviews considers the impact of blue and green spaces from the positive psychology perspective, which focuses on the gains in psychological outcomes (e.g., optimism, positive affect) instead of a reduction in deficits (e.g., depression, anxiety). Of the 149 systematic review and meta-analysis papers, 17 were included in the current review of reviews. The results highlighted the scarcity of systematic reviews that assess the positive outcomes of blue and green spaces and moderating factors associated with them. The existing systematic reviews identified inconsistent wellbeing frameworks, focused primarily on positive affect as an outcome of engaging in nature and disregarded eudaimonic aspects of wellbeing. Limitations of the current systematic reviews and future directions are discussed along with the implications for practice.