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In the last decade, an awareness towards temporary rivers has increased globally in response to drying climates and growing human demand for water. However, social perceptions of temporary rivers have rarely been incorporated in their science and management. In this study, we advance an understanding of the socio-cultural values of temporary rivers principally in a European context. We used an ecosystem services-based approach for a participatory and deliberative exercise with 16 researchers and managers. Our results point out to two important aspects of socio-cultural values in temporary rivers. First, cultural ecosystem services have high socio-cultural values and usually represent the interests of the less influential stakeholders in related conflicts. And second, the temporal and geographical variability of these types of rivers is key to understand their socio-cultural values. As an example, the low provision of freshwater in a long non-flowing phase is one of the reasons for its high value. The results above point to future research needs that deserve more attention like the study of tradeoffs and synergies of ecosystem services and interdisciplinary research and management. We finally acknowledge the need to conduct case study research to account for geographical variation and to include the multiple views of different stakeholder groups.

The impact of climate change on plant disease is an important concern for\ud agriculture. Tools from natural and social science are used in this interdisciplinary\ud study in an innovative way to assess potential impacts on the UK strawberry sector.\ud Records of agricultural statistics and disease incidence covering a 90-year period\ud were analysed to study agricultural change and the past influence of disease on the\ud sector. Future change in potential disease incidence was then modelled for three of\ud the most common diseases by building probabilistic projections for 2020 to 2080\ud using the UKCP09 scenarios. Using these disease scenarios, data were collected from\ud strawberry growers, through a national survey and case study work in two\ud contrasting areas of strawberry production, covering around 40% of the UK sector.\ud A number of major outcomes were obtained. The introduction of polytunnels was\ud seen as the most important influence on change in the sector, tripling crop yields and\ud reducing the climatic impact on yield variability. Disease was found to vary spatially\ud and temporally throughout the country, emphasizing the need for development of\ud resistant cultivars, use of pesticides and a change in cultivation methods. Changes in\ud future disease incidence were predicted for all three pathogens, with a high degree of\ud spatial variation. The outcome suggests that the UK Strawberry sector may be\ud vulnerable, not only to the impacts of plant disease, which has affected both the\ud distribution of the sector throughout the UK and profitability of some of the\ud businesses, but especially to pressures arising from other factors such as labour and\ud decreasing profit margins. When coupling these with important policy changes such\ud as the change in the EU Pesticides Directive, a challenging picture emerges for the\ud future of the sector in the UK. Lesson learned from this sector may be applicable to\ud other sectors.