Abstract
Scenarios are a tool to develop plausible, coherent visions about the future and to foster anticipatory knowledge. We present the Sustainable Future Scenarios (SFS) framework and demonstrate its application through the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) urban site. The SFS approach emphasizes the co-development of positive and long-term alternative future visions. Through a collaboration of practitioner and academic stakeholders, this research integrates participatory scenario development, modeling, and qualitative scenario assessments. The SFS engagement process creates space to question the limits of what is normally considered possible, desirable, or inevitable in the face of future challenges. Comparative analyses among the future scenarios demonstrate trade-offs among regional and microscale temperature, water use, land-use change, and co-developed resilience and sustainability indices. SFS incorporate diverse perspectives in co-producing positive future visions, thereby expanding traditional future projections. The iterative, interactive process also creates opportunities to bridge science and policy by building anticipatory and systems-based decision-making and research capacity for long-term sustainability planning.
Highlights
Urban sustainability challenges require anticipatory planning to address future uncertainty
Given the complexity and growing magnitude of stressors, cities are moving from predict-and-prevent approaches that respond to well-defined risks to resilience- and sustainability-building approaches that consider a range of potential shocks and pressures (Measham et al, 2011; Romero-Lankao, Gnatz, Wilhelmi, & Hayden, 2016; Tyler & Moench, 2012)
This approach has been applied in the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-term Ecological Research site (CAP Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER)) and the nine study cities of the Urban Resilience to Extreme Events Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN)
Summary
Given the complexity and growing magnitude of stressors, cities are moving from predict-and-prevent approaches that respond to well-defined risks to resilience- and sustainability-building approaches that consider a range of potential shocks and pressures (Measham et al, 2011; Romero-Lankao, Gnatz, Wilhelmi, & Hayden, 2016; Tyler & Moench, 2012) These approaches introduce normative elements and systems thinking that integrates diverse perspectives. The SFS framework offers guidance to co-produce visions and transition pathways of positive futures that develop and integrate interventions for sustainability transformations of social-ecological-technological systems. Normative values ascribed as “positive” futures are negotiated by participants in the co-production setting This approach has been applied in the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-term Ecological Research site (CAP LTER) and the nine study cities of the Urban Resilience to Extreme Events Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN).
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