Simpler Probabilistic Population Forecasts: Making Scenarios Work

The traditional high-low-medium scenario approach to quantifying uncertainty in population forecasts has been criticized as lacking probabilistic meaning and consistency. This paper shows, under certain assumptions, how appropriately calibrated scenarios can be used to approximate the uncertainty intervals on future population size and age structure obtained with fully stochastic forecasts. As many forecasting organizations already produce scenarios and because dealing with them is familiar territory, the methods presented here offer an attractive intermediate position between probabilistically inconsistent scenario analysis and fully stochastic forecasts.     

Combining biodiversity modeling with political and economic development scenarios for 25 EU countries

In the EURURALIS project, a chain of models was used to predict the changes in sustainable development indicators for European human well-being, ecology and economy issues, for four alternative scenarios of the future socio-economic development. This paper describes the biodiversity analysis of the project. Models based on general relationships between environmental factors and biodiversity loss were combined with socio-economic, land-use and environmental models to derive data that were integrated into an interactive tool for policy makers. The biodiversity analysis takes into account the effects of land-use change, climate change, fragmentation by major roads, area of unfragmented patches, nitrogen deposition, forestry and disturbance. Results show that biodiversity is projected to decrease between now and 2030 in most countries for all scenarios, indicating that it is unlikely that the EU will be able to fulfill its commitment to stop biodiversity loss by 2010. This is mainly due to urbanization and increase in stress factors, and outweighs the area increase of nature arising from land abandonment. Merits, limitations and uncertainties of this approach to biodiversity assessment are discussed.     

Linking scenarios across geographical scales in international environmental assessments

The development and analysis of scenarios or plausible futures has evolved to be a useful approach for dealing with uncertainty about future developments in a structured and integrated manner. Commonly, scenario exercises have focussed on processes at one specific geographic scale. Recently scenario-based approaches have also been used to address multi-scale processes or to link scenarios developed at various geographical scales with each other in order to better understand the interaction of processes across scales.The level of interconnectedness across scales will vary, and depends largely on the approaches used to develop multi-scale scenarios. We distinguish five levels of interconnectedness scenarios may display across scales: (a) Equivalent, (b) Consistent, (c) Coherent, (d) Comparable, and (e) Complementary. Furthermore, we describe five different types of coupled scenario development processes: (a) Joint, (b) Parallel, (c) Iterative, (d) Consecutive, and (e) Independent.Based on this nomenclature, the relationship between the level of interconnectedness of scenarios and the degree of coupling of scenario development processes across geographical scales is discussed. Which process is best suited and how much interconnectedness is needed, will depend both on the focal issue and the primary purpose of the scenario exercise, i.e. whether the aim is education, scientific exploration, or decision-support.     

Creating narrative scenarios: Science fiction prototyping at Emerge

Scenarios are stories. In the diverse field of scenario planning, this is perhaps the single point of universal agreement. Yet if scenarios are stories, their literary qualities are often underdeveloped. Scenarios used in business and government frequently do not contain a relatable protagonist, move a plot toward resolution, or compellingly use metaphor, imagery, or other emotionally persuasive techniques of literature. In these cases, narrative is relegated to an adjunct role of summarizing the final results of the workshop. While this neglect of narrative may be reasonable in some contexts, the power of narrative should not be underestimated. Scenario planning methodologies can benefit from using diverse narrative techniques to craft compelling and infectious visions of the future. This article explores the relationship between science fiction and scenarios as story genres and investigates a creative story-telling technique, “Science Fiction Prototyping” (Johnson, 2011). While the method is promising, it is an ultimately problematic means to incorporating narrative into scenario planning.     

Barriers to the investment in the Concentrated Solar Power sector in Morocco: A foresight approach using the Cross Impact Analysis for a large number of events

The Scenario Analysis methods have often been used by policy makers as an instrument to manage uncertainty and to support the shaping of long-term economy policies. In this research, we apply Scenario Analysis in order to identify the barriers affecting the decision to invest in the Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) sector in Morocco. Our results aim at facilitating the process of defining different paths in strategic political and policy actions. Using data from a survey on a panel of experts, the Cross Impact Analysis (CIA) and the Cross Impact Matrix System (SMIC) techniques are applied. The advantage of these techniques is that they allow including in the analysis the interlinkages between the events that will define the future scenarios. However, their limitation is that the number of events analyzed cannot be too high since the information collected from the experts increases exponentially according to the number of events introduced. We thus expand our analysis with a new methodological approach, combining the use of prospective and statistics techniques. This approach allows addressing the mentioned limitation and applying these techniques, initially restricted to 6 events in its common application, to a large number of events. The results show that uncertainty and informality would be key factors in promoting the arrival of companies in this sector. Additionally, regarding companies that already have a presence in Morocco’s renewable energy sector, an increase in activity would be achieved through improvements in the easing of financial and legal barriers.     

Are aquaculture growth policies in high-income countries due diligence or illusionary dreams? Foreseeing policy implications on seafood production in Singapore

In the beginning of 2019, the Singaporean government announced its desire to increase domestic food production and, in particular, aquaculture to reach 30% of self-sufficiency by 2030. Similar policies aiming at encouraging aquaculture growth abound in high-income countries in recent years, but have had limited success. Hence, this paper investigates the potential implications of such policies to foresee consequences beforehand and improve the policy’s chances of success. Three scenarios of aquaculture development are built for Singapore until 2040, among which a business-as-usual scenario and two explorative scenarios aiming at increasing aquaculture production, the first emphasizing existing technologies and the second giving priority to novel and innovative ones, like recirculating aquaculture systems. These scenarios are assessed using an adapted version of the supply-demand partial equilibrium model Asiafish to challenge their viability in the socioeconomic context of Singapore. Only the two explorative scenarios are found to allow the Singaporean government to reach its goal in terms of seafood self-sufficiency by 2030, one of which appears to have strong advantages. In this scenario, imports decrease by 28% by 2040, seafood self-sufficiency reaches 69% and 90% of all aquaculture originates from innovative technologies, which would make Singapore an aquaculture tech-hub. It also has higher benefits within Singapore environmental, social and economic constraints such as land and aquafeed scarcity.     

Scenarios and the art of worldmaking

In this exploratory paper we propose ‘worldmaking’ as a framework for pluralistic, imaginative scenario development. Our points of departure are the need in scenario practice to embrace uncertainty, discomfort and knowledge gaps, and the connected need to capture and make productive fundamental plurality among understandings of the future. To help respond to these needs, we introduce what Nelson Goodman calls worldmaking. It holds that there is no singular, objective world (or “real reality”), and instead that worlds are multiple, constructed through creative processes instead of given, and always in the process of becoming. We then explore how worldmaking can operationalise discordant pluralism in scenario practice by allowing participants to approach not only the future but also the present in a constructivist and pluralistic fashion; and by extending pluralism to ontological domains. Building on this, we investigate how scenario worldmaking could lead to more imaginative scenarios: worldmaking is framed as a fully creative process which gives participants ontological agency, and it helps make contrasts, tensions and complementarities between worlds productive. We go on to propose questions that can be used to operationalize scenario worldmaking, and conclude with the expected potential and limitations the approach, as well as suggestions for practical experimentation.     

The New Narrative: Applying narratology to the shaping of futures outputs

Both scenario development and design practices incorporate elements of storytelling, but this use remains undertheorised. This paper will draw upon literary theory, film theory and science fiction criticism to develop an analytical model of narrative structure and rhetorics which speaks to the concerns of scenario developers and designers when engaged in shaping the final outputs or deliverables of a futures project.After highlighting the differing role of telos in art and futures and defining the metacategory of “narratives of futurity”, this paper then defines the terms “story”, “narrative”, “narrator” and “world” in the literary context. It then shows how those concepts map onto futures practice, before going into detail regarding the variety of narrative strategies available across a range of different forms and media, and the qualitative effects that they can reproduce in audiences. There follows the construction of a 2 × 2 matrix based on the critical concepts of narrative mode and narrative logic, within which narratives of futurity might be usefully catalogued and compared, and from which certain broad conclusions may be reached as regards the relation between choice of medium and rhetorical effect. The implications of this analysis are explored in detail.     

Building internal business scenarios based on real data from a performance measurement system

This paper presents a new methodology to build internal business scenarios from the data gathered by some key performance indicators (KPIs) defined within a performance measurement system. The application of the principal components analysis technique leads to the identification of latent relationships between KPIs that underlies some important business aspects. Further, this methodology allows to represent not only the temporal evolution of the organisation as a function of these business aspects but also the definition and determination of internal business scenarios, being therefore the source of meaningful managerial information. At the end of the paper, results of a practical application are presented and discussed, as well as their importance for the organisation from a decision making point of view.     

Backcasting energy futures using industrial ecology

Backcasting has been widely used for developing energy futures. This paper explores the potential for using industrial ecology to guide the development of energy futures within a backcasting framework. Building on the backcasting work of Robinson [1], a seven step method is presented to embed industrial ecology principles within the development and assessment of future scenarios and transition paths toward them. The approach is applied to the case of backcasting regional energy futures in the Latrobe Valley, near Melbourne, Australia. This region has substantial brown coal deposits which are currently mined and used in coal-fired power stations to generate electricity. Bounded by a sustainability vision for the region in a carbon-constrained world, regional industrial ecologies in 2050 were backcast around three themes: bio-industries and renewables (no coal usage); electricity from coal with carbon capture and storage (low to high coal usage); and coal to products such as hydrogen, ammonia, diesel, methanol, plastics and char (demonstrating medium to high overall coal use relative to current levels). Potential environmental, technological, socio-political and economic impacts of each scenario across various life cycle stages were characterised. Results offer a platform for regional policy development to underpin deliberation on a preferred future by the community, industry and other stakeholders. Industrial ecology principles were found to be useful in backcasting for creatively articulating alternative futures featuring industrial symbiosis. However, enabling the approach to guide implementation of sustainable transition pathways requires further development and would benefit from integration within the Strategic Sustainable Development framework of Robèrt et al. [2].