The document discusses using scenario planning to analyze and manage trade-offs in resource management decisions. It provides examples from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment scenario work, which explored trade-offs decision makers may face under different scenarios. The assessment developed four scenarios based on different emphases on economic policy, environmentalism, technology, and local adaptation to examine impacts on ecosystems, ecosystem services, and human well-being. The scenarios helped analyze trade-offs between goals like food production, biodiversity, and water security under different pathways.

1. Developing
scenarios for
analyzing and
managing
trade-offs
Monika Zurek
Climate Focus BV
Amsterdam, NL

2. This talk focuses on:
 Scenario
planning as a tool for analyzing
and managing trade-off
 Examples from the Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment Scenario work to illustrate the
use of scenario planning for exploring
different trade-offs decision makers face

3. Trade-offs Involved in Resource Management
Decisions
Water availability
Food supply and Freshwater supply and
demand demand
Water use and nutrient loss
Erosion and
water flow
Forest product supply
and demand
Climate
change
Biodiversity
loss
Source: Ayensu et al. 1999. Science 286:685-686.

4. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was
 An international scientific assessment completed in 2005.
Conducted by ~1400 scientists from 100 countries.
 Focused on the consequences of changes in ecosystems
for human well-being
 Designed to meet a portion of the assessment needs of
international conventions, private sector, civil society and
others
 Undertaken at multiple scales (local to global)
 Designed to both provide information and build capacity
to provide information
 Expected to be repeated at 5-10 year intervals if it
successfully meets needs

5. MA Conceptual Framework
Human Well-being and Indirect Drivers of Change
Poverty Reduction  Demographic
 Basic material for a good life  Economic
 Health (globalization, trade, market and
policy framework)

 Security
Human
Good Social Relations
 Indirect (governance and
Sociopolitical
 Well-being
Freedom of choice and action Drivers
institutional framework)
 Science and Technology
 Cultural and Religious
Direct Drivers of Change
 Changes in land use
Ecosystem  Direct
Species introduction or removal
 Technology adaptation and use
Services  Drivers
External inputs (e.g., irrigation)
 Resource consumption
 Climate change
 Natural physical and biological
drivers (e.g., volcanoes)

6. Types of Ecosystem Services Trade-offs
portrayed in the Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment Scenarios
MA 2005, Vol 3

8. VITAL SIGNS DECISION INDICATORS CATEGORIES
Human
Ecosystems
Thread Indicator Agriculture well
Services
being
Climate Forcing Net AFOLU Climate Forcing X
Biodiversity Biodiversity Security X
Wood Fuel Wood fuel Energy Security X X
Rangeland degradation X
Livestock
Forage Adequacy X X
Water Water Security X X X
Resilience Resilience or buffering index X X X
Inclusive Wealth Sustainability index X X X
Food Security Food Security Index X X
Soil Health Soil Health Index X X
Ag. Intensification Yield Target (%) X
Poverty Poverty X
Health Prevalence of malaria,
diarrhea, anemia X
Nutrition % overweight, under weight,
X

9. How can scenario development/
forward looking work help with
analyzing and managing trade-offs
 Better understand the elements and driving
forces, their speed and interactions, which
govern the system
 Clarify the multiple objectives that
stakeholders have with respect to the
system’s management
 Analyze and visualize trade-offs often made
implicitly when deciding on a course of
action
 Decide on and communicate a strategy for
managing the system

10. The scenarios approach -
What are scenarios?
 Plausible stories about how the future might unfold from
existing patterns, new factors and alternative human choices.
The stories can be told in the language of both words and
numbers (Raskin, in press).
Plausible descriptions of how the future may develop, based
on a coherent and internally consistent set of assumptions
about key relationships and driving forces (Nakicenovic 2000).
 A tool for ordering one’s perceptions about alternative
future environments in which one’s decision might be played
out (Schwartz 1996).
Plausible alternative futures, each an example of what might
happen under particular assumptions (MA).

12. Anatomy of scenarios
Boundaries
•Spatial
Key Dimensions •Thematic
•Multi-dimensional •Temporal
space of variables
Current Situation
•Historic context
•Institutional description Driving Forces
•Quantitative accounts •Trends
•Processes Image of
the Future
Critical Uncertainties
•Resolution alters course of events
Plot
•Captures dynamics
•Communicates effectively
Source: P. Raskin 2002

13. Steps in a scenario planning exercise
 Decide on purpose of scenario and
stakeholder involvement
 Back casting exercise
 Identification of main areas of uncertainty
 Identification of main drivers of change
 Develop first set of storylines
 Critically assess storylines
 Identify important surprises
 Decide on modeling capacity
 Stakeholder feedback session & iterations
 Final write up

15. Good Scenarios should
 be plausible (or ‘not implausible‘)
 be internally consistent and coherent
 be constructed with rigour, detail & creativity
 meet the goals of scenario exercise
Source: T. Henrichs 2003

16. The focal questions of the MA scenarios
 Consequences (in 50 years) of plausible changes in drivers
and development pathways
 For ecosystems and their services
 For human well-being
 Four scenarios. What happens when decision-makers
 1. Emphasize global economic policy reform
 2. Give primary emphasis to self-reliance, security and the
local and regional environment
 3. Emphasize the development and use of technologies
allowing greater eco-efficiency and adaptive control
 4. Emphasize adaptive co-management and local
learning about socio-ecological systems

17. The MA scenarios
Environmentally
reactive
Global Order from
Orchestration Strength
globalized fragmented
Techno Adapting
Garden Mosaic
Environmentally
pro-active

18. Modeling to quantify parts of
the MA scenarios
Model Outputs
IMPACT Provisioning Services
World food
production - Food (meat, fish, grain
production)
Model Inputs - Fiber (timber)
- Freshwater (renewable
Demographic AIM water resources &
Economic withdrawals)
Global change
Technological - Fuel wood (biofuels)
Regulating
IMAGE 2 - Climate regulation (C flux)
- Air quality (NOx, S
Global change emissions)
Supporting
Storylines primary production
WaterGAP
Economic World water
Optimism Techno resources
Garden, etc.

19. …and to make it more complicated:
Ecological Feedbacks
Model Inputs
AIM
Demographic Global change
Economic
Technological IMAGE 2
Measures of
Global change Biodiversity
habitat (e.g.
land cover, Models
IMPACT river discharge)
World food
production
WaterGAP Number of
World water Species
resources
Ecological Ecosystem
Feedbacks Function

20. Changes in crop land and forest area
under MA Scenarios
Crop Land Forest Area

21. Some results related to agriculture
 Demand for provisioning services, such as
food, fiber, and water, increases across
scenarios.
 Food security remains out of reach for many
people and child malnutrition will be difficult
to eradicate even by 2050, despite increasing
food supply under all four scenarios and more
diversified diets in poor countries.

22. Ecosystem services outcome across the scenarios

23. Human Well-being across the scenarios

24. How can scenario development/
forward looking work help with
analyzing AND managing trade-offs
 Better understand the elements and driving
forces, their speed and interactions, which
govern the system
 Clarify the multiple objectives that
stakeholders have with respect to the
system’s management
 Analyze and visualize trade-offs often made
implicitly when deciding on a course of
action
 Decide on and communicate a strategy for
managing the system

25. Examples of trade-off decisions faced
at different scales when managing
agricultural systems
 Farm:
 Fertilizer use versus water quality
 Region:
 Intensifying production versus taking new land
into production
 Globe:
 Managing agriculture for food production alone
versus food AND environmental stewardship
 Managing agriculture-environment-human
wellbeing trade-offs proactively or reactively

26. Greenhouse gas emissions changes
across the scenarios