Scenario Planning: A Tool for Climate-Informed Decision Making
Scenario planning is helping NOAA Fisheries scientists and resource managers plan and make the best possible decisions in the face of climate change.
What is scenario planning?
Scenario planning is a structured process decision makers use to prepare for plausible future conditions rather than one single future. NOAA Fisheries and other organizations are using scenario planning to help assess the ways climate, oceans, resource conditions and human activities may change. We also use it to examine assumptions and explore options that promote adaptation and increase resilience to changing conditions and uncertain futures.
Scenario planning can take several forms, including highly participatory workshops with multiple types of expertise. Regardless of format, the fundamental objective of scenario-based climate change adaptation planning is to develop insights that inform decision-making for a rapidly changing world.
In general, scenario planning explores relevant driving forces that have high impact and high uncertainty and creates 3–4 plausible futures to consider. Each plausible future is called a “scenario.” Participants then identify actions that would be useful across one or more of these scenarios. Working across scenarios, participants can identify:
- Current practices likely or unlikely to succeed in the future
- Critical uncertainties around which monitoring or new science could be developed
- Updated and new goals or actions that are robust and relevant to an uncertain and dynamic future
- Historical goals or objectives that may no longer be relevant given potential climate changes
- When to update or add new management goals that improve the ability to plan for the uncertain and dynamic future
There are a number of benefits to using scenario planning, including:
- Quicker reactions to changing conditions
- More effective decisions and flexible plans
- Innovative ideas
- Early and broad risk identification
- Stakeholder engagement and alignment toward a common vision
Other organizations and agencies including the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service use scenario planning to manage natural resources.
How does scenario planning work?
Scenario planning can be implemented in multiple ways, and the steps involved can be modified to fit the specific needs of a project. It typically follows this general process:
Establish
Determine the appropriate scope and focus goals to address a particular uncertainty or problem.
Discover
Investigate the problem in greater detail. This may involve meeting with and interviewing stakeholders.
Create
Create a small number of plausible future scenarios. Scenarios can be built collaboratively in workshops or by smaller stakeholder groups, depending on project needs. A useful set of scenarios is:
- Plausible–based on the best available science
- Relevant–focused on the management question
- Divergent–characterizes a range of future conditions
- Challenging–effective for examining established practices and assumptions and fostering creative thinking
Validate
Examine the scenarios and evaluate possible management actions under the scenario conditions. This phase is typically carried out in a workshop or series of workshops in which stakeholders discuss the implications of the scenarios for the focal issue and look at the focal issue from multiple perspectives.
Apply
Use the scenarios to inform strategic planning, vision setting, risk assessments, and management strategies.
Why do we need scenario planning?
Marine and freshwater ecosystems continue to experience the effects of climate change. These effects include increasing temperatures, changes in precipitation, increased ocean salinity, ocean acidification, and increased extreme weather events like marine heatwaves, flooding, droughts, and hurricanes. Unfortunately, many of these events and their impacts can be challenging or impossible to predict.
Effective decision making in a changing climate requires scientists and resource managers to be able to anticipate a variety of future scenarios. The scenario planning process helps these groups better prepare to respond to these events when they happen.
When is scenario planning useful?
Scenario planning has been and will be useful for adapting marine resource management to climate change. It helps fisheries and protected resource managers, habitat protection and restoration specialists, and others create forward-looking and adaptable policies, practices, and actions needed to be successful in the future.
Scenario planning is particularly useful in situations where there is high uncertainty about the future and limited control over the system. Where this is not the case, other approaches might be better suited.
Scenario planning is useful to help participants think “outside-the-box” about plausible future challenges and solutions. When participants are too focused on current high-stakes challenges, it may be difficult to consider the future even 5 years out. They may be unable to think about creative, novel approaches or solutions.
Scenario planning often builds on information from other climate adaptation tools to inform future scenarios and possible responses. For example, experts use Climate Vulnerability Assessments and Ecosystem Assessment Reports to identify climate-related factors that may impact the current and/or future condition of a resource. The combined use of these tools can help scientists and managers develop more proactive and comprehensive management plans.
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What are some examples of scenario planning?
NOAA Fisheries is already implementing scenario planning in some regions to inform fisheries management and protected resources conservation. Examples include:
Atlantic Salmon
Scenario planning was used to explore what can be done to improve U.S. Atlantic salmon population resilience to changing climate conditions in riverine, estuarine (transition), and marine environments across its current range, from U.S. headwaters to Greenland.
North Atlantic Right Whale
This exercise was designed to address uncertainties around future human-caused and environmental changes and how these uncertainties may impact the recovery of North Atlantic right whales.
Puget Sound Salmonids
This exercise examined the impacts of climate scenarios on the protection and recovery of seven species of salmonids and their habitats in Puget Sound.
Climate and Communities Initiative
Organized by the Pacific Fishery Management Council, this initiative used scenario planning to develop three initiatives to improve fisheries management in a changing climate.
East Coast Climate Change Scenario Planning
The three East Coast fishery management councils and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission implemented a scenario planning process aimed at identifying robust management and governance options to address stocks with changing productivities and distributions. The fisheries management bodies are considering which priority ideas to move forward in 2024 and beyond.
North Pacific Climate Change Scenario Planning
In June 2024, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council hosted a workshop to generate ideas for short- and long-term management approaches to improve climate resiliency of federally managed fisheries in the North Pacific.