Abstract
Scenario analysis has more than a half-century of history behind it (Glenn and The Futures Group International 2003), and a wide range of scenario methods and techniques are now available (Bishop et al. 2007). While the term “scenario” refers to a story about the future – that is, a narrative – many scenario exercises include a quantitative analysis. This is particularly true in the environmental realm, and recent important examples include the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Nakićenović and Swart 2000), the United Nations Environment Programme’s Global Environment Outlook (UNEP 2007), the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (Carpenter et al. 2005) and the Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture (CA 2007).
This chapter is substantially revised version of an earlier paper “From Narrative to Number: A Role for Quantitative Models in Scenario Analysis” (Kemp-Benedict 2004).
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Notes
- 1.
The method described in this chapter shares many features with the “XLRM” method of Lempert et al. (2003) for robust decision making (RDM). The RDM process is distinct from XLRM, which is an approach to building scenario models. While RDM can be run without an attendant narrative, we view the narrative as an essential aspect of scenario development, and see Lempert et al.’s RDM (and related techniques) as very useful ways to use models to give insights to a narrative team.
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Kemp-Benedict, E. (2013). Going from Narrative to Number: Indicator-Driven Scenario Quantification. In: Giaoutzi, M., Sapio, B. (eds) Recent Developments in Foresight Methodologies. Complex Networks and Dynamic Systems, vol 1. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5215-7_8
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