Building common understanding of scenario based strategies to inform climate change adaptation

The Scenarios for Climate Adaptation project aimed to strengthen knowledge about the most effective ways to develop and use scenario based strategies to improve climate change adaptation decision making, drawing on the experience of Victorian climate adaptation policy makers and practitioners.

Scenario based strategies can provide policy makers and practitioners with valuable tools to consider and analyse a diverse range of future trends, contexts, risks and opportunities. Informed by quantitative and/or qualitative evidence, scenarios also have the capacity to illuminate potentially critical ‘unknowns’, to encourage organisations to think ‘outside the square’ and to challenge taken for granted assumptions about the future.

The project was undertaken by an interdisciplinary and multi-institutional team led by Professor John Wiseman at the University of Melbourne.

Scenarios for climate adaptation – Policy brief - July 2011

Scenarios for climate adaptation  – Full report - June 2011

Scenarios for climate adaptation - Guidebook for practitioners

Additional resources

From probability to possibility: Using scenarios to get our heads around climate change
John Wiseman and Lauren Rickards, The Conversation, June 10, 2011

Critical perspectives working papers - November 2010

Critical perspectives seminar presentations - November 2010

Videos

Stakeholder workshop presentations - November 2011

Initial project overview - July 2010
Scenarios for Climate Adaptation - Project Overview

Research team

Scenarios for Climate Adaptation was funded by the Victorian Government through VCCCAR. It was undertaken by an interdisciplinary and multi-institutional team led by Professor John Wiseman at the University of Melbourne.
Project Leader: Prof. John Wiseman, University of Melbourne 
Project Coordinator: Taegen Edwards, University of Melbourne 
Che Biggs, University of Melbourne 
Dr Lauren Rickards, University of Melbourne

Technical Reference Group
Prof. Darryn McEvoy and Harmut Fünfgeld , Climate Change Adaptation Program, Global Cities Research Institute, RMIT University 
Dr Roger Jones, Centre for Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University 
Prof. Ray Ison and Andrea Grant, Monash Sustainability Institute, Monash University 
Dr Penny Whetton, Climate Variability and Change, CSIRO 
Barry Warwick, Future Environments and Climate Change, Victorian EPA