Elucidating stakeholder perspectives with regards to scenario design and formulating agent decision rules: methodologies and results. D2.2 PRIMA collaborative project, EU 7th Framework Programme, contract no. 212345
Résumé
A scenario may be defined as a description of how the future may unfold based on 'if-then' propositions, and typically consists of a representation of an initial situation and a description of the key driving forces and changes that lead to a particular future state (Alcamo and Henrichs, 2008). Scenarios may be expressed qualitatively, by means of a narrative or story-line, or quantitatively, commonly making use of modelling outputs. Alternatively, as will be the case for PRIMA, they may be a hybrid of both approaches producing a final scenario which consists of a step-by-step storyline and quantification of the resulting changes. This deliverable sets out a generic method for scenario development which follows several stages: identification of a focal issue for study; defining the system in which the issue exists, including its driving forces; identifying possible evolutions of the system; building scenarios or dynamic stories describ-ing the evolutions; testing the scenarios, in particular their plausibility; and policy screening by which policies are tested, analysed and created. There is increasing acceptance that stakeholders can improve scenario development with respect to scenario relevance, credibility and legitimacy and consequently stakeholder inputs will be sought at several stages. At the pre-modelling stage, stakeholder interviews were conducted early in 2010 in one case study area (municipality) per participating member state. This identified driving forces, relevant policy areas and, by considering the successful working (or otherwise) of policy measures, gained an insight into agent behaviour. This information will allow researchers to develop narratives, with agent decisions explicitly included, which will be validated with stakeholders prior to quantification.