Elsevier

Ecosystem Services

Volume 38, August 2019, 100967
Ecosystem Services

Scenario planning for climate change adaptation for natural resource management: Insights from the Australian East Coast Cluster

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2019.100967Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Explorative scenario planning used as tool to deal with the uncertainty and complexity.

  • Development and application of explorative scenarios for natural resource management.

  • Analysis of ES related policies for the Australia East Coast Cluster.

  • Learnings from scenario planning application for climate change adaptation.

Abstract

Natural resources and inherent ecosystem services have long been under pressure from unsustainable exploitation further exacerbated by climate change impacts. Managing natural resources in the Australian context is also a complex task because it involves a raft of stakeholders subjected to ongoing institutional changes and reductions in funding for programme implementation. This paper explores the use of scenario planning as a suitable tool to deal with the uncertainty and complexity inherent to natural resource management. Specifically, it reports on the development and application of explorative scenarios (multiple plausible futures) involving six natural resource management organisations and their communities of practice operating along the East Coast of Australia. Scenarios were developed based on two key drivers of change, namely: maturing approach to natural resource management; and community driven climate change action, to test the robustness and flexibility of a suite of existing strategies, policies and targets. Findings indicate that explorative scenarios were useful in the identification of strategies that may result in perverse or negative impacts under different futures; guide selection of different approaches in response to unexpected events; encourage a forward-looking approach rather than relying on past experiences only; create flexible, robust strategies that are better able to deal with shocks and surprises; provide participating policy owners with an opportunity to consider future contexts for their policies to play out in; and, ascertain a range of possible pathways to achieve a vision or goals depending on changed circumstances.

Introduction

The uncertainty inherent to climate science makes it difficult to determine the extent to which climate change will impact ecosystem services (ES) (Scholes, 2016). This uncertainty is compounded when other drivers of change are at stake such as urbanisation and population growth (McPhearson et al., 2015). There is also limited knowledge about how ES could assist in climate change adaptation and mitigation (Schetke et al., 2018). Yet, it is widely acknowledged that ES can assist in the achievement of many Sustainable Development Goals, including Climate Action (Wood et al., 2018).

Australia is no exception with climate change likely to impact both marine and terrestrial ecosystems in a number of ways. Increased mean temperatures, change in rainfall patterns and extreme weather events are likely to impact the country’s ecosystems morphology, community composition, geographic distribution of species, life cycles, productivity and give rise to diseases (Reisinger et al., 2014). It is also recognised that the national natural resource base (e.g., water quality, biodiversity, soil health) has declined over the last decades (Lockwood et al., 2010). Ecosystem management in Australia is largely the responsibility of natural resource management (NRM) organisations working in partnership with governments and communities. NRM organisations are tasked with responsibilities relating to managing land, water, soil, animals and plants as well as climate change adaptation (Adams et al., 2017); thereby having a key role in sustaining and maintaining a range of ecosystem processes and functions that in turn contribute to ES (Costanza et al., 2017). Additionally, Australian NRM organisations operate under significant institutional uncertainty regarding the availability of human and financial resources that affect the implementation of on-ground programmes targeting conservation, restoration and rehabilitation of ecosystems (Vella et al., 2015, Serrao-Neumann et al., 2019).

The high level of environmental and institutional uncertainty affecting the activities of Australian NRM organisations warrants the use of scenario planning for informing climate change adaptation because of its known suitability to contexts of high uncertainty, rapidly changing situations, and low ability to control the forces of change (Cork et al., 2004, Pearson et al., 2010). Scenario planning constructs scenarios as descriptions of possible alternative futures and/or the causal events and trajectories that can lead to different future states (Amer et al., 2013, Börjeson et al., 2006). These scenarios are often presented in the form of narratives or storylines (Amer et al., 2013), and are not predictions of what the future will look like but plausible representations of possible futures based on drivers of change (Oteros-Rozas et al., 2015).

Over the last decade, there has been a rise in popularity in scenario planning practice, research and literature, including for climate change adaptation (Bohensky et al., 2011, Serrao-Neumann and Low Choy, 2018, de Coninck et al., 2018) and ES (Oteros-Rozas et al., 2015, Sandhu et al., 2018, Harmáčková and Vačkář, 2018). This rise in interest has led to a proliferation in scenario planning methodologies (Varum and Melo, 2010). Scenario planning methodologies can be grouped under three main categories: predictive, explorative, and normative scenario planning. This paper reports on the use of explorative scenario planning that explores situations or developments, which may be regarded as future possibilities, and generally seek to include a variety of perspectives. Usually a group of scenarios are developed to collectively represent a wide scope of potential future developments. For this reason, explorative scenario planning is geared towards questions about ‘what can happen?’ (Börjeson et al., 2006).

Explorative scenario planning methodologies are often carried out to test the robustness or adaptability of different actions, policies or strategies (Carlsson-Kanyama et al., 2008). Testing strategies or policies in different scenarios to see how they might be affected by future developments or events that are outside the scope of control of an organisation reflects on their robustness or adaptability (Börjeson et al., 2006). Alternatively, explorative scenario planning can focus on internal factors within the control of an organisation (e.g., different policy or strategic approaches). The result reflects on a range of possible consequences that may emerge from strategic decisions or policies (Börjeson et al., 2006).

There are also limitations on the use of scenario planning. Many new emerging methods in scenario planning of integrating quantitative and qualitative data are still being developed, and may require many technical and institutional capabilities (Oteros-Rozas et al., 2015). For example, not all agencies have the physical and human resource capacity to process large datasets. This may be due to limited access to the technologies and skills required, and the availability of datasets themselves. Additionally, the integration of input from stakeholders as well as other experts that are not directly affected by plan developments remains a methodological challenge because scenario planning relies on institutional support and individual interest to participate (Oteros-Rozas et al., 2015: Means et al., 2010).

Nevertheless, there is growing recognition of the need for environmental management to consider multiple environmental and social processes over multiple scales of time and space. This has led to a greater tendency for planning for environmental management to consider thresholds, or tipping points in environmental systems (Cork et al., 2004). For issues of environmental management, scenario planning can help to explore social ecological feedbacks and potential surprises that cannot be easily replicated in formal modelling approaches. Data on locally perceived changes and impacts of possible futures gleaned through scenario planning can be useful in achieving improved understanding of current and future conditions and dynamics (Oteros-Rozas et al., 2015).

This paper adds to a growing body of studies discussing the applicability of scenario planning for strategic planning and decision-making concerning ES in Australia (Sandhu et al., 2018, Bohensky et al., 2011) and elsewhere (Oteros-Rozas et al., 2015, Harmáčková and Vačkář, 2018). The paper contributes to further advance the use of scenario planning in this context by exploring how it can inform the implementation of more flexible and robust strategies for natural resource management planning for climate change adaptation, especially under current and future institutional and environmental uncertainty.

Section snippets

Research design

At the time of this research there were 56 NRM organisations in Australia (Australian Government, 2014) that were grouped into eight clusters for the purpose of the Natural Resource Management Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Research Grants Program (2012–2016). This paper focuses on the East Coast Cluster, comprising six regional organisations on the east coast of the states of Queensland (QLD) and New South Wales (NSW) (see Fig. 1).

The East Coast Cluster provide a suitable case study

Results and discussion

Exploring multiple plausible future situations can help to expand the sphere of thinking of those carrying out scenario planning and better prepare them for those eventualities should they materialise in the future. It can identify new issues or challenges that may develop in the future. This can in turn improve decision-making processes, and stimulate creative and flexible ways to meet goals and address vulnerabilities (Amer et al., 2013). As expected, the strategies were assessed differently

Conclusion

The management of ES depends on a raft of management conditions and decisions operating at any one point in time. These conditions (and management decisions) will vary in the future as a consequence of changing human induced (e.g., urbanisation) and environmental variations (e.g., climate change). While this scenario planning process was specifically used to assess existing policies (and not to generate new ones), and part of this assessment assumed climate change impacts, some policies did

Acknowledgements

The authors thank members of the East Coast Cluster, and in particular the Planners Working Group, for their support and participation in this project. This research has been funded by the Australian Government as part of the Natural Resource Management Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Research Grants Program, under Stream 2 of the Natural Resource Management Planning for Climate Change Fund.

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