Beyond Adaptive Capacity: How Institutional Routines Shape Evidence Use in UK Water Policy

Effective environmental governance depends on translating scientific knowledge into action, yet we know surprisingly little about how policy (and policy adjacent) actors consume and deploy scientific evidence. This study examines citation patterns in UK freshwater policy documents, with a particular focus on rivers, revealing systematic gaps between scientific knowledge production and policy uptake. 

Using Overton, the world’s largest database of policy documents, we trace the uptake (via citations within policy) of freshwater research across UK government agencies and international governmental organisations. Our analysis reveals several key patterns: publicly-funded research institutions are disproportionately influential relative to the wider evidence ecosystem; "methods" papers proposing frameworks and analytical tools dominate policy citations; and strong regional preferences exist, with organisations repeatedly citing familiar sources rather than accessing the broader evidence base. We observe reduced lag times between scholarly publication and policy citation following legislative changes, suggesting temporal and contextual relevance drives evidence uptake. However, citation practices show considerable stickiness, with organisations referring to "preferred" papers used repeatedly over time.

These findings challenge assumptions about evidence-based policymaking, revealing that relational familiarity and institutional proximity shape evidence consumption as much as scholarly quality or comprehensiveness. We discuss implications for understanding the science-policy interface, the role of publicly-funded research bodies as knowledge brokers, and strategies for improving evidence uptake in environmental (and in particular, freshwater) governance. These insights highlight current gaps and inform more realistic approaches to strengthening evidence uptake in freshwater and broader environmental governance.