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Co-creating a desirable and resilient future for Lienz, Austria—a local case study in socio-economic scenario development

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Abstract

The aim of this case study was to conduct a participatory approach to socio-economic scenario development in the city of Lienz (East Tyrol) and to suggest this process-oriented approach as an element of an integrated guiding and decision support tool for local resilience and risk management to policy makers, business leaders, and civil society. The paper takes a socio-economic perspective and describes the settings of the case study, the process, and approach taken for co-creating two distinct normative socio-economic scenario narratives for the city of Lienz: a desirable or resilient future and an undesirable or stagnant future. Results are presented as sector-specific scenario narratives. Matching the local scenario narratives with the global shared socio-economic pathways, it derives that local peculiarities such as population decline due to outmigration trends or decentralized manufacturing industry and educational institutions were judged to be critical factors in securing local resilience for a prospering future.

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Notes

  1. We use the terms participatory and transdisciplinary research approach as synonyms for interdisciplinary research that involves the active engagement of non-scientists and practitioners from outside academia (Brandt et al. 2013).

  2. Parts of stakeholders participating in the scenario workshop also belonged to the group of interviewees regarding natural hazard perception. Workshop participants, however, represented the Lienz region but not the federal province level.

  3. The common statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community.

  4. Since national sectoral accounts are therefore inappropriate for an evaluation of the economic significance of tourism, UNWTO, the United Nations World Tourism Organization, has recommended to set up tourism satellite accounts (TSAs) in which the economic value of tourism activities is extracted from the sectoral production accounts. In Austria, such TSAs are estimated by Statistics Austria in cooperation with WIFO for the national level and selected provinces.

  5. At the time of the scenario co-creation, the refugee flow from Syria and other countries had not yet reached the European countries and was hence not part of the discussion during the scenario workshop.

  6. Other than from Syria and related countries.

  7. Financial issues were discussed in a consecutive step of the ARISE project when prioritizing adaptation measures by means of multi-criteria analysis.

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Acknowledgments

The findings presented stem from the project ARISE. Many thanks go to the participants of the stakeholder workshop in Lienz, in particular Oskar Januschke, for sharing their views. We are grateful to Reinhard Mechler for constructive advice, to Susanne Markytan for research assistance, and to conference participants for stimulating discussions. Last but not least, we thank the anonymous reviewers for valuable guidance in the revision of our paper.

Funding

ARISE was funded by “The Climate and Energy Fund of the Austrian Federal Government” within the framework of the “Austrian Climate Research Programme.”

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Austrian Institute of Economic Research – WIFO, Vienna, Austria

    Ina Meyer & Oliver Fritz

  2. Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSwiss (former affiliation: alpS - Centre for Climate Change Adaptation, Innsbruck, Austria), Zurich, Switzerland

    Michiko Hama

  3. Austrian Research Center for Forests – BFW, Vienna, Austria

    Robert Jandl

  4. Environment Agency Austria, Vienna, Austria

    Markus Leitner

  5. GEORESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft mbH, Wals, Austria

    Markus Keuschnig

  6. ZAMG – Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamik), Vienna, Austria

    Ivonne Anders

  7. Austrian Agency for Health and Food – AGES, Vienna, Austria

    Helene Berthold

  8. alpS - Centre for Climate Change Adaptation, Innsbruck, Austria

    Brigitte Eder

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  1. Ina Meyer
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Meyer, I., Hama, M., Jandl, R. et al. Co-creating a desirable and resilient future for Lienz, Austria—a local case study in socio-economic scenario development. Reg Environ Change 19, 1059–1071 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-018-1439-y

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