Scenario building model to support the resilience planning of winemaking regions: The case of the Douro territory (Portugal).

Abstract

Today resilience paradigm is shared by both academic and political debates, and it is gradually being implemented into plans, programmes, and project's initiatives. In this context, wine regions, particularly those designated as UNESCO sites, show their robustness and vulnerabilities as Socio-Ecological Systems. The climate change impact is increasing the exposure of their aesthetic, cultural, economic, natural values to potential losses and therefore an effective response is required To build resilient strategies, Decision Makers are increasingly considering multidimensional models in planning and assessment processes. This paper continues a research work that develops an integrated evaluation framework constituted by Multicriteria Decision Analysis to calculate a Territorial Resilience Index, a dynamical model to predict future ecological scenarios and scenario building to define a resilient strategy for the Douro territory (Portugal). This paper focuses on scenario building which uses specific tools such as Social Network Analysis to identify and investigate the relationships between real actors and stakeholders, Wilson matrix to assess the degree of uncertainty and relevance of the strategies identified by a panel of specialists, and consistency matrix to evaluate the strategies consistency in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and UNESCO requirements. The obtained protocol of guidelines and recommendations can support Decision Makers in the design of sustainable and resilient transformation, thereby assisting in the preservation of the UNESCO site.