Your Vision or My Model? Lessons from Participatory Land Use Scenario Development on a European Scale

Participatory processes in scenario development have received increasing attention throughout the last years. Combining qualitative stakeholder and quantitative expert information (i.e. modelling) offers unique opportunities to mix good data, scientific rigour, imagination and expertise from different perspectives. However, this task is all but easy as it requires a careful balancing of approaches and an acceptance of different levels of knowledge and trust in different methods across disciplinary boundaries. In spite of a growing body of literature we are still in the early stages of learning how to deal effectively with participatory scenario development. In the PRELUDE project of the European Environment Agency a relatively far-reaching participatory approach to scenario development was applied: a group of stakeholders from across Europe was given full responsibility to develop long-term alternative land use scenarios in cooperation with experts and modellers. The scenarios have been used in a formal outreach process with key clients and stakeholders at the European and Member State level afterwards. The aim of this paper is to document the methods used, analyse their strengths and weaknesses and draw some general conclusions regarding participatory processes in scenario development. This paper argues that in future scenario development more attention needs to be paid to strengthen the integration of qualitative and quantitative analysis. A set of compelling and coherent storylines can effectively trigger strategic conversations among policy-makers and key stakeholders about potential future developments and related response strategies. A weak integration with quantitative results can undermine this outcome, which is one of the ultimate objectives of any scenario exercise.