Socio-Ecological Futures: Embedded Solutions for Stakeholder-Driven Alternative Futures

Abstract

Scenarios of landscape change have the capacity to address spatial and temporal issues, current and future trends, and solutions that increase capacity and/or resilience in social-ecological systems and their networks. In this study, we present a resilience framework for food–energy–water systems and demonstrate it with a case study in Magic Valley, Idaho. We formulated scenarios of change based on stakeholder input (qualitative data), researcher-developed models (quantitative data), and validation of plausibility through impact and indicator evaluation. The stakeholder engagement process identified key issues, critical uncertainties, and plausible and viable solutions to future challenges. Specifically, we analyzed cross-scenario futures and their solutions to address water quality issues in the face of climate change, land-use change conflicts, and population shifts in the region. The process activates stakeholder and research-based models to create geospatial alternative futures and their associated timesteps, with embedded solutions, which broadens and improves conventional scenario-based research. The process intends to provide policy-makers, researchers, and scenario facilitators with a strategic framework to activate solutions temporally with a stakeholder-defined suite of scenarios.