Envision: A scenario-based integrated modeling platform for climate adaptation planning and assessment

Background/Question/Methods

In the past several decades there has been a dramatic increase in the use of scientific, quantitative methods for informing landscape change and decision-making in the presence of deep uncertainty. This increase has occurred in both the public and private sectors. As a result, a clear need for robust tools that support integration of biophysical and sociocultural models, policy choice representation, and stakeholder engagement has emerged.

Envision is a scenario-based model integration platform created to allow examination of the nature and properties of coupled human and natural systems. It integrates policies, scenarios, and multiparadigm models of biophysical and sociocultural phenomena to project spatial and temporal dimensions of landscape change and assess landscape performance against application-specific production metrics.  Envision includes a multiagent modeling subsystems representing decision-making actors on the landscape.  As actors assess alternative management options, they weigh the relative utility of potentially relevant policies against their own values, landscape scarcities expressed as feedbacks, and global policy preferences, to determine what policies, if any, they will select to apply at any point in time/space. This approach has been particularly useful in engaging stakeholders in scenario planning.

Results/Conclusions

We report on the basic approach employed in Envision and describe the utilization of Envision in several climate adaptation studies involving teams of scientists and stakeholders.  In particular, we highlight the Willamette Water 2100 project examining policy alternatives for mitigating water scarcity in the face of growing population pressures, changing climate, and increasing recognition of the role of water in supporting habitat needs of endangered and threatened species, and decribe results related to the spatial and temporal patterns of emerging water scarcity, the efficicacy of alternative strategies for mitigating this scarcity, and outcomes of a stakeholder engagement process.