Pepper DA, Lada H, Thomson JR, Bakar KS, Lake PS, Mac Nally R. A method to identify drivers of societal change likely to affect natural assets in the future, illustrated with Australia's native biodiversity.
THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2017;
581-582:80-86. [PMID:
27979625 DOI:
10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.10.112]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/30/2016] [Revised: 10/13/2016] [Accepted: 10/16/2016] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
Human society has a profound adverse effect on natural assets as human populations increase and as global climate changes. We need to envisage different futures that encompass plausible human responses to threats and change, and become more mindful of their likely impacts on natural assets. We describe a method for developing a set of future scenarios for a natural asset at national scale under ongoing human population growth and climate change. The method involves expansive consideration of potential drivers of societal change, a reduction of these to form a small set of key drivers to which contrasting settings are assigned, which we use to develop a set of different scenarios. We use Australia's native biodiversity as the focus to illustrate the method.
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