This course consists of directed readings and studies on a particular topic of special interest to the student and the member of staff who agrees to direct and supervise it. It is designed principally for students with a strong interest in and aptitude for individual research. It may focus on a topic that complements that chosen for the research project and should lead to a written report of the length and quality of a publishable literature review or article.

In Semester Two, 2013 the topic will be

Robert Costanza, Ida Kubiszewski, Steve Cork, Geoff Gorrie

“To deal with the future we have to deal with possibilities. Analysis will only tell us ‘What is’.”

Edward de Bono, Parallel Thinking

Predicting the future is impossible.  But what we can do is lay out a series of plausible scenarios, which help to better understand future possibilities and the uncertainties surrounding them. As Nicholls et al. (2011) put it:  “Scenarios enable decision makers to consider a variety of plausible storylines of how the future might unfold and are exploratory tools where factors shaping the future are especially uncertain or the complex nature of systems makes them unpredictable.”  They have become an important way to inform decision-making under uncertainty.

‘Scenario’ is a term with multiple meanings. Scenario exercises vary in their objectives and hence their characteristics (Biggs et al., 2007, Nicholls et al. 2011). We define scenario analysis or scenario planning as a structured process of exploring and evaluating the future. Scenarios are essentially stories that consider how alternative futures, typically related to a particular focal issue (O’Brien, 2000), may unfold from combinations of highly influential and uncertain drivers, and their interactions with more certain driving forces. 

Scenario planning differs from forecasting, projections, and predictions, in that it explores plausible rather than probable futures (Peterson et al., 2003). Although aspects of the future worlds depicted by scenarios may come to eventuate, these worlds are often best viewed as caricatures of reality from which we can learn.

Scenario planning is based on four assumptions (DTI 2003):

1. The future is unlike the past, and is significantly shaped by human choice and action.
2. The future cannot be foreseen, but exploring possible futures can inform present decisions.
3. There are many possible futures; scenarios therefore map within a ‘possibility space’.
4. Scenario development involves both rational analysis and creative thinking.

Scenarios are best suited to exploring situations of high uncertainty and low controllability (Peterson et al., 2003); for example, climate change and global governance are largely beyond the control of a particular region. In these situations, scenarios can help to illuminate the consequences of these uncontrollable forces and to formulate robust responses locally. Importantly, scenarios can help to reveal policy and value changes that may be required, and key branching points at which such changes can most affect outcomes (Gallopín, 2002).

Several scenario-planning exercises have been conducted in recent years at a range of spatial scales and for a range of purposes, including: global futures (Gallopin et al. 1997, Nakicenovic and Swart, 2000, Raskin et al. 2002, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005), regional futures (European Environmental Agency 2009, Bohensky et al. 2011), corporate strategy (Wack, 1985, Shell International 2003), political transition (Kahane, 1992, 2004) and community-based natural resource management (Wollenberg et al., 2000; Evans et al., 2006).  For example, the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) (Nakicenovic and Swart, 2000) scenarios have been widely used to study the potential impacts of future climates, especially within the IPCC process. The SRES scenarios are based on four global “storylines” (termed the A1, A2, B1, and B2 worlds, respectively) which represent different world futures based on two distinct axes or dimensions: (1) economic versus environmental concerns, and (2) globalised versus regional/national-based development patterns.  These two axes define four distinct quadrants for future development.

An interesting feature of many of these exercises is that their scenarios are all fairly consistent and fall along a spectrum of “quality of life” or human well-being (Table 1).

This course will consist of three general steps:

The major focus of the course will be a comprehensive literature review and synthesis of existing scenarios that have been developed for Australia and the World. Students and course faculty will work together to identify, review, summarize and synthesize these scenarios.  The goal is to identify common threads and attempt to create a set of scenarios that embody the range and depth of existing scenarios.  The hypothesis is that we will find a high degree of convergence around a set of themes (Hunt et al 2012).  For example, Table 1 represents one way of characterizing scenarios from a range of sources.  There are also several different approaches to generating scenarios and we will search for ways to characterize and synthesize these approaches (Curry and Schultz 2009).  Most descriptions of plausible futures include the relevant elements of the system, driving forces that will define the future, and the early indicators for the unfolding (realisation) of each scenario. For example, a scenario of “business as usual” describes what the continuation of current trends will look like into the future (education and social services conditions, ecosystem health and services, transportation and energy infrastructure, etc.), the economic and political forces that will drive that future, and what the indicators will be over time that signal the path to that future. 

For Australia, major elements of future scenarios include:

• Population dynamics, demographic shifts and in-migration levels
• Ecosystem health and ecosystem services.
• Overall quality of life
• Future conditions of transportation and electrical infrastructures based on different scenarios of  systems maintenance and investment
• Education and health care changes resulting in public/private funding changes, public policy shifts, etc
• Water supply changes around the country affecting agriculture, forestry, fisheries, industry and municipal water systems
• Australia’s economy, especially relative to Asia and the world
• Trends in early childhood development, K-12 and higher education that indicate future scenarios for labor force, social equality, health and welfare burdens

The synthesis exercise will result in a small number of scenarios with common characteristics derived from the large number of sources that we identify and characterize in step one.  For each of these scenarios, an evaluation in some detail of the characteristics of that scenario will be developed.  What does that &ld