Young Scholars Dialogue, part of a Special Feature on Scenarios of global ecosystem services Linking Futures across Scales: a Dialog on Multiscale Scenarios

By Reinette Biggs, C. Raudsepp-Hearne, Carol Atkinson-Palombo, E. Bohensky, E. Boyd, G. Cundill, H. Fox, Scott E. Ingram, Kasper Kok, S. Spehar and 3 more. 2007

228 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Scenario analysis is a useful tool for exploring key uncertainties that may shape the future of social-ecological systems. This paper explores the methods, costs, and benefits of developing and linking scenarios of social-ecological systems across multiple spatial scales. Drawing largely on experiences in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, we suggest that the desired degree of cross-scale linkage depends on the primary aim of the scenario exercise. Loosely linked multiscale scenarios appear more appropriate when the primary aim is to engage in exploratory dialog with stakeholders. Tightly coupled cross-scale scenarios seem to work best when the main objective is to further our understanding of cross-scale interactions or to assess trade-offs between scales. The main disadvantages of tightly coupled cross-scale scenarios are that their development requires substantial time and financial resources, and that they often suffer loss of credibility at one or more scales. The reasons for developing multiscale scenarios and the expectations associated with doing so therefore need to be carefully evaluated when choosing the desired degree of cross-scale linkage in a particular scenario exercise.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Management Science and Operations Research

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0849d34b20df69fcd015b095071555c7d86b12d4

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In Global and Planetary Change

In Management Science and Operations Research

Citations in the corpus

The Influence of Reward Program Membership and Commitment on Hotel Loyalty (2011, methodology): “SBD is considered a useful tool for evaluating a variety of uncertain outcomes using both quantitative scales and qualitative approaches (Biggs et al., 2007).”
Making Investments in Dryland Development Work: Participatory Scenario Planning in the Makanya Catchment, Tanzania (2008, background): “Scenario-planning exercises can be participatory or expert led to varying degrees (van Notten et al. 2003) and performed from local to global scales, or sometimes across scales (Biggs et al. 2007).”
Exploring future changes in smallholder farming systems by linking socio-economic scenarios with regional and household models (2014, background): “The significant complexity and uncertainty associated with the interacting biophysical and socio-economic dimensions of agricultural systems should also be taken into account by using a multiple scenarios approach, informed by relevant stakeholder perspectives (Biggs et al., 2007).”
Anticipatory Learning for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience (2010, background): “…building is a participatory process that involves multiple stakeholders and their creative visions for assessing situations in which future-shaping factors are uncertain and often impossible to control (Wollenberg et al. 2000, Swart et al. 2004, Evans et al. 2006, Biggs et al. 2007, Peterson 2007).”
REVIEW: Predictive ecology in a changing world (2015, background): “story and simulation (Alcamo 2001) combines narratives about possible changes as input parameters and mechanistic models that can quantify the consequences of these changes (Biggs et al. 2007).”
Governance, scale and the environment: the importance of recognizing knowledge claims in transdisciplinary arenas (2011, background): “…change, pollution, and ecological processes; the sheer complexity of the issues; and the potentially large number of scales that can and sometimes should be considered have spawned an impressive body of literature (see, e.g., Gibson et al. 2000, Van der Sluijs et al. 2005, Biggs et al. 2007).”