Description
GLISA’s scenario planning approach describes plausible future events and has actors respond to them. The goal is to account for uncertainty by developing a framework to plan for potentially disastrous disruptions, rather than only focusing on specific, likely outcomes. When focusing only on likely events, actors discount other high-risk scenarios. Planning for multiple plausible futures, including extremes, can increase the robustness of their management practices and preparedness for climate change impacts.
Background
Scenario planning is a method to manage uncertainty, especially high-risk events. Scenario planning has been used by the U.S. military, the energy sector, and NASA (Cann, 2010; Cornelius et al., 2005). GLISA’s scenario planning experience includes partnerships with the U.S. National Park Service (NPS), Tribes, watershed constituents, and the U.S. military. Our partnership with Isle Royale National Park integrated climate information into NPS’s scenario planning approach for evaluating potential impacts on the wolf and moose populations (Fisichelli et al. 2013). Important to this approach was the formal consideration of competing management priorities, so that climate scenarios were explored to manage, strategically, NPS’s mission. GLISA’s current scenario planning approach was adapted from this NPS work.
Methods
GLISA’s scenario planning approach begins with the lead practitioner, who determines the desired goals of the scenario development process, including the scenario planning workshop. The lead practitioner then works with participating stakeholders to identify management concerns or vulnerabilities they wish to evaluate, based on the outlined goals. This information is communicated to GLISA, who then develops baseline climate scenarios tailored to the group’s goals and concerns, taking into account any data needs that are expressed. These climate scenarios provide the foundation for the workshop exercises, where the stakeholders collaborate to build out the scenarios to incorporate management concerns, disruptive weather events, impacts, and subsequent management actions or recommendations. After the workshop, stakeholders can use their expertise to inform and explore the possible adaptation and mitigation efforts to the scenarios.
Pre-Workshop | |
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Expectations of the lead practitioner | Expectations of GLISA |
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Workshop | |
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Expectations of the lead practitioner | Expectations of GLISA |
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Post-Workshop | |
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Expectations of the lead practitioner | Expectations of GLISA |
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Outputs
Lead practitioners can gather input from the workshop participants to summarize the key lessons learned from the workshop experience and the management/adaptation outcomes that were identified. The participants can then take the scenarios and information gleaned from the workshop back to their organizations’ leadership, who are capable of making impactful decisions, in order to make management recommendations and implement adaptation actions in their planning.
Example
In fall 2018, GLISA applied our approach to a Michigan Army National Guard installation at the Fort Custer Training Center (FCTC) in Battle Creek, MI. Per Department of Defense requirements, installations must implement an Integrated Natural Resource Management Plan (INRMP) with regular updates, and the National Guard leadership wanted to incorporate climate change and adaptation into their next IMRMP update.
In October 2018, GLISA led a scenario planning workshop that guided natural resource managers through a process of learning about local climate trends and future projections. Attendees then identified weather and/or climate events that challenge their management of specific natural resources (i.e. invasive species, high-quality natural areas, etc.). This scenario planning exercise identified management goals, mapped environmental hazards to these goals, and prioritized threats. The participants used the scenarios to identify priority management concerns and make management recommendations by group, including increasing variability and flexibility of prescribed burn programs, buffering wetlands, storing water in times of stress, and re-imagining road networks to avoid vulnerable resources.
References
Cann, Anne. 2010. Scenario‐Based Strategic Planning in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Civil Works Program. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Institute for Water Resources.
Cornelius, P., A. Van de Putte, et al. 2005. Three Decades of Scenario Planning in Shell. California Management Review 48(1) 92-109
Fisichelli, N., C. Hawkins-Hoffman, L. Welling, L. Briley, and R. Rood. 2013. Using climate change scenarios to explore management at Isle Royale National Park: January 2013 workshop report. Natural Resource Report NPS/ NRSS/CCRP/NRR—2013/714. National Park Service, Fort Collins, Colorado.