Environmental Futures: The Practice of Environmental Scenario Analysis

203 Pages·2008·2.72 MB·English

by  Joseph Alcamo (Eds.)

DEVELOPMENTS IN INTEGRATED ENVIRONMENTAL
ASSESSMENT – VOLUME 2
ENVIRONMENTAL FUTURES:
THE PRACTICE OF ENVIRONMENTAL
SCENARIO ANALYSIS
Edited by
Joseph Alcamo
Series Editor:
A.J. Jakeman
2008
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About the Authors
Editor and Author
JosephAlcamo
Professor and Director of Center for Environmental Systems Research, University
ofKassel,Germany.30yearsofenvironmentalresearch,inparticular,contributedto
development of global modeling and environmental scenario analysis. Active with
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 1994, twice as a Conven-
ing Lead Author. Major role in planning and carrying out international scenario
exercises of the World Water Commission, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the
Global Environmental Outlook of UNEP, and the Glowa Jordan River Scenario
Project. Max Planck Research Prize, 1998. Lead editor and co-author of “Global
Change Scenarios of the 21st Century” (Elsevier, 1998).
Authors
PetraDöll
Professor, University of Frankfurt, Germany. Developer of large-scale scenarios of
water use and availability for different world regions.
ThomasHenrichs
ScenarioExpert.NationalEnvironmentalResearchInstitute,UniversityofAarhus,
Denmark. Earlier with European Environment Agency, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Major role in international scenario exercises of the World Water Commission and
United Nations Environment Programme, European Environment Agency.
RikLeemans
Professor, Wageningen University, The Netherlands. Dean of Dutch National
GraduateSchoolonClimateandtheEnvironment(SENSE).Ledthedevelopment
of many global environmental models and their application to scenario analysis, in
particular with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment.
v
vi AbouttheAuthors
ClaudiaPahl-Wostl
Professor,UniversityofOsnabrück,Germany.Activeinmanynationalandinterna-
tionalscenarioexercises.Pioneeringworkinbroadeningparticipationofstakehold-
ers in scenario exercises. Leader of European project on integrated water resources
management.
GerhardPetschel-Held(deceased)
Former Department Head, Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research, Ger-
many.Activeroleindevelopmentofmanyregionalandinternationalscenarios.Key
contributions to scenario analysis of Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and many
other international studies. Tragically, Dr. Petschel-Held passed away in 2005.
DaleRothman
Senior Scientist, International Institute for Sustainable Development, Winnipeg,
Canada. Active in many international scenario exercises. Co-Coordinator of the
Scenario Analysis of the Global Environmental Outlook of the United Nations
Environment Programme.
FerencToth
Expert, International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria. Well-known inter-
nationalscenarioexpert.Workedwithmanyinternationalorganizationssuchasthe
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis on the development of envi-
ronmental scenario analysis and integrated environmental assessment.
Preface
In hindsight, the year 2007 may look like a turning point in concern for the future
of the global environment. It was the year in which signatories of the climate con-
vention met in Bali to launch negotiations for a new climate treaty that will cover
emissionreductionsformanyyearsintothefuture.ItwastheyearinwhichUNEP
launcheditsfourthGlobalEnvironmentOutlookreportalertingtheworldtolikely
transformationsintheglobalenvironmentupto2050.Itwastheyearofbigclimate
reports – The UK’s “Stern Report” asserting that climate change in future decades
could seriously damage the world’s economy; and the three huge volumes of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) providing finer detail than
everbeforeaboutfutureconsequencesofclimatechange.TheninDecembercame
theultimateacknowledgmentthatthinkingaboutthefuturewasusefultosociety–
TheIPCCandAlGorewereawardedtheNobelPeacePrizefortheirpublic work
on climate change.
Although concern for the future may have reached a new peak in 2007, an-
other set of events launched a decade earlier also had an important influence
on planning for the future. Since the 1990s scientists and stakeholders have been
working together on a series of wide-ranging international scenario exercises con-
fronting the question of future changes in the global environment. Indeed, the
number and importance of these exercises suggest that we are in a kind of golden
era of global scenarios. The era’s beginning could be traced back to the develop-
ment of the global emission scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change. This was followed, among others, by the “World Water Vision Exercise”
of the World Water Commission, and the scenarios of worldwide ecosystem ser-
vices produced by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Recent additions have
been the global environmental scenarios of UNEP’s Global Environmental Out-
look report, the integrated scenarios of the OECD Environmental Outlook, and
the agriculture-related scenarios of the International Assessment of Agricultural
Science and Technology for Development. Many of these scenario exercises are
described in Chapters 3 and 6.
But not only the global scale has earned the attention of scenario developers.
For decades many other groups have been developing environmental scenarios on
the local, regional and national scales. Indeed, scenario analysis has been applied to
a wide range of environmental problems and over a similarly large range of scales.
Altogether these scenario studies make up a very rich collection of different views
and estimates of the future environment.
Although it would be an exciting task to write a book about the many new
environmental scenarios, this book is not about the future. Instead, it is about the
vii
viii Preface
practice of studying the future. Rather than examining the scenarios themselves, here
we describe the process for developing them. The book was motivated by the fact
that surprisingly little attention has been given to assessing the deficiencies of envi-
ronmental scenario analysis.
What are its shortcomings? A short list includes:
• Agenerallackofrigorindefinitionsandmethodologywhichlimitsthecredibil-
ity of results of a scenario exercise.
• Atoonarrowrepresentationofdifferentinterestsinthescenarioexerciseswhich
takes away from the acceptance of the scenarios.
• A muddled use of different scales which leads to confusion about their results.
• A lack of unexpected “surprises” in scenarios which neglects the important role
of surprising events in shaping the future.
The purpose of this book is to deal with these and other deficiencies of en-
vironmental scenario analysis with the aim to improve it as a methodology and
make it even more useful for examining future changes in society and the natural
environment. The following topics are covered by different chapters:
Chapter1“Introduction:TheCaseforScenariosoftheEnvironment”describes
the two main threads of current scenario practice in environmental research and
policy and the challenges they face.
Chapter2“TowardsGuidelines...”isasynthesischapterwhichaimstoincrease
therigorinenvironmentalscenarioanalysisbysystematicallylayingoutdefinitions,
procedures and methods, and by ordering methods used by many different prac-
titioners. While pluralism of method is a worthy goal under some circumstances,
in science and policy there is much to be said for rigor and reproducibility. This
chapterincludesamongothertopicsadiscussionofproposedcriteriaforevaluating
scenarios.
Chapter 3 “A Survey of Environmental Scenarios” presents an overview of the
rich and diverse range of environmental scenarios and serves as a kind of access
guide for readers wishing to find out more about the details of different scenarios.
Moreover this chapter presents a framework for understanding the different types
and uses of environmental scenarios.
Chapter 4 “Searching for the Future of Land...” delves into an important and
comprehensivetypeofenvironmentalscenario,namelylandusescenarios.Included
are prescriptions for improving the development of these scenarios which are ap-
plicable to all types of environmental scenarios.
Chapter 5 “Participation in Building Environmental Scenarios” lays out the
rationale and possibilities for increasing the engagement of scenario users in devel-
opingscenarios.Throughoutthisbookthecaseismadethatanintenseengagement
of end users is both desirable and possible in a scenario exercise and is essential for
scenarios to gain legitimacy and credibility in the policy community.
Chapter 6 “... Combining qualitative and quantitative knowledge...” points
out specific ways for exploiting the advantages of both narrative and numerical
scenariosinasingleexercise,withtheaimtobetterservetheneedsofbothscience
and policy.
Preface ix
Chapter7“ScaleIssuesinEnvironmentalScenarioDevelopment”addressesthe
key scientific and policy problem of how to incorporate the many scales of envi-
ronmental phenomena in a scenario analysis.
Chapter 8 “Dealing with Surprises in Environmental Scenarios” confronts the
issue of creativity and surprise in scenarios. How can scenarios be informative and
surprising and be scientifically valid at the same time?
Although final versions of book chapters were written in 2007, the idea for
the book originated much earlier at a workshop in Kassel, Germany. The editor
and authors are very grateful to participants of this workshop for their intellectual
contributions to this book.1
We also thank Martina Weiss for assistance in editing the manuscript and grate-
fully acknowledge the following reviewers of various chapters: Jan Bakkes, Karl-
HeinzSimon,SebastienTreyer,KeesvanderHeijden,RuudvanderHelm,Dörthe
Krömker, and Monika Zurek. We are particularly grateful to Tony Jakeman for his
sponsorship of this book.
Finally, it is sad to note that one of the book’s authors, our good friend and
colleague, Gerhard Petschel-Held, died tragically in 2005. I can say with assurance
on behalf of all the authors that we sorely miss Gerhard’s good humor, friendly
disposition and intellectual power. It is a shame we can no longer work with him
on imagining the future.
Joseph Alcamo
Kassel
January, 2008
1 “ScenariosoftheFuture:theFutureofScenarios–Aninternationalworkshoponscenariosoftheenvironment”
UniversityofKassel,Germany,2002.ParticipantsofthisworkshopwereJosephAlcamo,JanBakkes,HartmutBossel,
TimothyCarter,JoanDavis,CharlotteDeFraiture,PetraDöll,PeterEder,AndreasErnst,AntonGeyer,ThomasHenrichs,
Jippe Hoogeveen, Jill Jäger, Dörthe Krömker, Carlos Larazani, Rik Leemans, Josefina Lindbloom, Dennis Meadows,
LaurentMermet,TsuneyukiMorita,NebosjaNakicenovic,ClaudiaPahl-Wostl,GerhardPetschel-Held,TeresaRibeiro,
DaleRothman,Karl-HeinzSimon,ErikTerk,FerencTóth,SebastienTreyer,KeesvanderHeijden,RuudvanderHelm,
SaraVassolo,MonikaZurek.TheeditorexpressesthankstotheEuropeanForumforIntegratedEnvironmentalAssessment
(EFIEA),theVolkswagenFoundation,andtheEuropeanEnvironmentAgency(EEA)forsupportforthisworkshop.
Contents
AbouttheAuthors v
Preface vii
1. Introduction:theCaseforScenariosoftheEnvironment 1
Author:JosephAlcamo
1. Prologue:EnvironmentalScenariosandtheScientificMethod 1
2. WhyBuildScenariosoftheEnvironment? 3
3. TheTwoThreadsofEnvironmentalScenarioAnalysis 5
4. Inquiry-drivenScenarioAnalysis 5
5. Strategy-drivenScenarioAnalysis 7
6. DoScenariosHaveaFuture? 8
References 10
2. TowardsGuidelinesforEnvironmentalScenarioAnalysis 13
Editors:JosephAlcamoandThomasHenrichs
1. Introduction 13
2. ConceptsandDefinitions:WhatisEnvironmentalScenarioAnalysis? 14
2.1. Whatarethekeyelementsofenvironmentalscenarioanalysis? 16
2.2. Whatarethegoalsofenvironmentalscenarioanalysis? 17
2.3. Whatarethedifferenttypesofenvironmentalscenarios? 19
3. MethodsandApproaches 22
3.1. Methodsfordevelopingandanalysingenvironmentalscenarios 22
3.2. Howmanyscenariosshouldbedevelopedandanalysed? 26
3.3. Howcantheparticipationofstakeholdersandexpertsbe
increased? 26
3.4. Howcansurprisesbeincludedinenvironmentalscenarioanalysis? 29
3.5. Howcanscenarioscoverdifferentscales? 31
3.6. Howcanenvironmentalscenariosbeevaluated? 33
Acknowledgements 35
xi
xii Contents
3. ASurveyofEnvironmentalScenarios 37
Author:DaleS.Rothman
1. Introduction 37
2. EnvironmentalandEnvironmentally-relevantScenarios 38
2.1. Definingscenarios 38
2.2. Definingenvironmentalscenarios 40
3. CharacterizingScenarios 41
3.1. Scenariologic–purpose,process,&substance 41
3.2. Dimensions–drivingforcesandkeyuncertainties 42
3.3. Archetypes–endstates 45
4. ExistingSurveys 49
5. OverviewofEnvironmentalScenarios 51
5.1. Topicalscenarios 51
5.2. Integrativescenarios 54
6. ClosingRemarks 58
References 58
4. SearchingfortheFutureofLand:ScenariosfromtheLocaltoGlobalScale 67
Authors:JosephAlcamo,KasperKok,GeraldBusch,andJörgPriess
(with:BasEickhout,MarkRounsevell,DaleRothman,MaikHeistermann)
1. Introduction 67
2. ScenarioAnalysis:AMethodforAnticipatingtheFutureofLand 68
2.1. Qualitativescenarios 68
2.2. Quantitativescenarios 69
3. GlobalandContinentalScenarios 71
3.1. Methodologicalissues 71
3.2. Globalscenarioresults 72
3.3. Africanscenarioresults 76
3.4. Europeanscenarioresults 78
4. RegionalandLocalScenarios 82
4.1. Methodologicalissues 82
4.2. Resultsfromregionalandlocalscenarios 85
4.3. Resultsfromurbanscenarios 88
4.4. Resultsfrommulti-scalescenarios 89
5. MainFindingsofScenarios 91
6. TowardsBetterLandScenarios 94
7. ClosingRemarks 99
Acknowledgements 99
References 100
Contents xiii
5. ParticipationinBuildingEnvironmentalScenarios 105
Author:ClaudiaPahl-Wostl
1. Introduction 105
2. PolycentricGovernanceandParticipationinEnvironmentalPolicy 107
3. DesigningaParticipatoryProcess 109
3.1. Whyisthescenariobuildingprocessbeingcarriedout? 109
3.2. Forwhomarethescenariosproducedfor? 110
3.3. Whoshouldparticipateandwhenshouldtheybeincluded? 110
3.4. Whatistheexpectedoutcomeoftheparticipatoryprocess? 112
3.5. Howshouldthescenarioexercisebecarriedout? 113
3.6. Explorationofdifferentmethodsforparticipation 114
4. GroupModelBuildinginParticipatoryScenarioPlanning 117
5. Conclusions 120
Acknowledgement 120
References 121
6. TheSASApproach:CombiningQualitativeandQuantitativeKnowledgein
EnvironmentalScenarios 123
Author:JosephAlcamo
1. Introduction 123
2. FeaturesofQualitativeandQuantitativeScenarios 124
3. TheWorldWaterVisionScenarios–TheWorldWaterSituationin2025 127
4. TheSRESScenariosoftheIPCC–GlobalGreenhouseGasEmissionsupto
2100 129
5. TheScenariosoftheMillenniumEcosystemAssessment–TheStateofWorld
Ecosystemsupto2050 131
6. TheGEO-4Scenarios–TheGlobalEnvironmentupto2050 135
7. TheSAS(StoryandSimulation)ApproachtoScenarioDevelopment 137
8. AdvantagesofSAS 140
9. DrawbacksofSASandaWayForward... 141
9.1. Thereproducibilityproblem 141
9.2. Theconversionproblem 143
10. Summingup 148
Acknowledgements 148
References 148
7. ScaleIssuesinEnvironmentalScenarioDevelopment 151
Authors:PetraDöll,GerhardPetschel-Held,andRikLeemans
1. Introduction 151
2. SpatialScales 153