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Flood retention, in particular controlled flood retention, plays an increasingly prominent role in the portfolio of flood risk management strategies. Though a highly effective measure to reduce the risk of flooding for vulnerable areas, flood retention is land-intensive and infringes on landowners' property rights. Implementation efforts are thus often hampered by the lack of availability of land as well as by the growing demands of (agricultural) landowners for compensation of flood retention services. The proliferation of flood retention not only changes riparian land uses but also results in a shift of authority, power, and agency to lower levels of government as well as to non-governmental actors, including the private landowners who provide the land for flooding but also those who benefit from flood retention. By the example of a compensation scheme for the controlled flood retention in Altenmarkt, an alpine municipality in …