Plausible futures of a social-ecological system: Yahara watershed, Wisconsin, USA

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Agricultural watersheds are affected by changes in climate, land use, agricultural practices, and human demand for energy, food, and water resources. In this context, we analyzed the agricultural, urbanizing Yahara watershed (size: 1345 km², population: 372,000) to assess its responses to multiple changing drivers. We measured recent trends in land use/cover and water quality of the watershed, spatial patterns of 10 ecosystem services, and spatial patterns and nestedness of governance. We developed scenarios for the future of the Yahara watershed by integrating trends and events from the global scenarios literature, perspectives of stakeholders, and models of biophysical drivers and ecosystem services. Four qualitative scenarios were created to explore plausible trajectories to the year 2070 in the watershed's social-ecological system under different regimes: no action on environmental trends, accelerated technological development, strong intervention by government, and shifting values toward sustainability. Quantitative time-series for 2010-2070 were developed for weather and land use/cover during each scenario as inputs to model changes in ecosystem services. Ultimately, our goal is to understand how changes in the social-ecological system of the Yahara watershed, including management of land and water resources, can build or impair resilience to shifting drivers, including climate.

Resilience (Republished)

“…Scenario planning is a forward looking approach aimed at articulating multiple alternative futures in a way that spans a key set of critical uncertainties, using qualitative and quantitative methods and data (e.g., Peterson et al 2003b, Swart et al 2004) and engaging diverse stakeholder in participatory processes for stewardship of social-ecological systems subject to change (e.g., Enfors et al 2008, Plieninger et al 2013, Carpenter et al 2015b, Oteros-Rozas et al 2015. Scenario work is an important part of the Future Earth Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS), a program with a strong focus on social-ecological systems, resilience, and stewardship of ecosystem services in dynamic landscapes and seascapes, operating in the context of the challenges of the Anthropocene (Carpenter et al 2012b, Fischer et al 2015.…”

Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society: Knowledge for sustainable stewardship of social-ecological systems

“…As highlighted by several papers in this special feature (Hanspach et al 2014, Carpenter et al 2015, Mitchell et al 2015) participatory scenario planning is an increasingly popular tool in place-based environmental research for evaluating alternative futures of social-ecological systems. Oteros-Rozas et al (2015) review 23 cases of participatory scenario planning in a wide range of case-studies affiliated to PECS.…”

“…Carpenter et al (2015) develop four divergent trajectories for the agricultural and rapidly urbanizing Yahara watershed (southern Wisconsin, USA) to the year 2070, including a hypothetical collapse scenario, which is contrasted by scenarios emphasizing technological development, governance intervention, and shifting values. The authors recognize that scenarios are difficult to replicate as a research method, but highlight how useful they can be in exploring how different drivers, such as climate change, could play out in the watershed and conclude that scenarios will continue to be a useful tool for future social-ecological research.…”

A novel deliberative multicriteria evaluation approach to ecosystem service valuation

“…Also, the selected method to communicate scenariorelated information to respondents or workshop participants may influence participants' knowledge building and preference judgements. Apart from the traditional scientific PowerPoint presentation, scientists have been using alternative methods to communicate science to the public such as videos, games, illustrations, and theater (Sheppard et al 2011, Wibeck et al 2013, Carpenter et al 2015. For example, Carpenter et al (2015) used illustrations and videos to communicate their scenarios to the general public.…”