Stakeholders and Scenarios Andrew Allan CECHR Annual Symposium 11 February 2015
ESPA Deltas: Project Aims In Coastal Bangladesh • To understand the present relationship between ecosystem services and human well-being and health. • To predict how these ecosystem services might evolve over the coming years and decades (up to 50 -100 years) • To analyse how policy can influence these outcomes and promote ecosystem services and human well-being and health. • To select robust policies that are effective across the range of uncertainty. • Using participatory approaches.
Aim of involving stakeholders • Ensure relevance of research • Achieve better understanding of physical and social contexts in country • (hopefully) Avoid duplication with other projects / optimise cross-project efforts • Identify potential users of research and tailor findings for that constituency • Involving stakeholders from outset and continuing engagement throughout project life allows • profile building • Research design modification to accommodate changing priorities over time
• Maximise potential for uptake (and therefore Impact)
Reason for scenarios ESPA Deltas project uses scenarios of possible (and plausible) futures inspired by IPCC AR5 SSPs: • allows responses to environmental and social changes over time to be explored in a way that accommodates the huge levels of uncertainty involved. – Less Sustainable – Business as Usual – More Sustainable
• Allows us to take the issues of concern and project how they might look in 2050 • Also facilitates integration of stakeholder views with science.
How stakeholders have been involved in scenarios • Identification of issues of most concern in the study area • Elaboration of these (c. 100 elements), and projection of how they might look in 2050 • Critical development of narratives designed to make these 100 elements more palatable • Translation of the narrative (qualitative scenarios) into modellable numbers (quantitative) • Next stage is for identification of Policy/ management changes that can be modelled to illustrate changes to these agreed numbers
Expected / Desired outcomes • Detailed understanding of relationships between ES and livelihoods based on reality and stakeholder experience • Uptake of project outputs (e.g. model) by key stakeholders (e.g. Planning Commission; WARPO) • Connection with DeltaPlan2000 – Dutch investment in flood infrastructure • Consensus agreement on steps to be taken to get from current situation to desired future