scholarly journals Anticipatory Resilience Bringing Back the Future into Urban Planning and Knowledge Systems

2021 ◽  
pp. 159-172
Author(s):  
Tischa A. Muñoz-Erickson ◽  
Kaethe Selkirk ◽  
Robert Hobbins ◽  
Clark Miller ◽  
Mathieu Feagan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Knowledge System ◽  
Knowledge Systems ◽  
Future Scenarios ◽  
Critical Component ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
The Future

AbstractAnticipatory thinking is a critical component in urban planning practices and knowledge systems in an era of unpredictability and conflicting expectations of the future. This chapter introduces “anticipatory resilience” as a futures-oriented knowledge system that intentionally addresses uncertain climate conditions and explores alternative, desirable future states. It suggests a portfolio of tools suitable for building long-term foresight capacity in urban planning. Examples of knowledge systems interventions are presented to explore the trade-offs, constraints, possibilities, and desires of diverse future scenarios co-generated in settings with people that hold different perspectives, knowledge, and expectations.

scholarly journals Optimal prediction with resource constraints using the information bottleneck

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vedant Sachdeva ◽  
Thierry Mora ◽  
Aleksandra M. Walczak ◽  
Stephanie Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Resource Constraints ◽  
Internal Representation ◽  
Motion Prediction ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Resource Limitations ◽  
Information Bottleneck ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Markovian Dynamics ◽  
The Future

Responding to stimuli requires that organisms encode information about the external world. Not all parts of the signal are important for behavior, and resource limitations demand that signals be compressed. Prediction of the future input is widely beneficial in many biological systems. We compute the trade-offs between representing the past faithfully and predicting the future for input dynamics with different levels of complexity. For motion prediction, we show that, depending on the parameters in the input dynamics, velocity or position coordinates prove more predictive. We identify the properties of global, transferrable strategies for time-varying stimuli. For non-Markovian dynamics we explore the role of long-term memory of the internal representation. Lastly, we show that prediction in evolutionary population dynamics is linked to clustering allele frequencies into non-overlapping memories, revealing a very different prediction strategy from motion prediction.

scholarly journals Planning for 1000 Years: The Råängen Experiment

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 249-262
Author(s):  
Peter Pelzer ◽  
Roger Hildingsson ◽  
Alice Herrström ◽  
Johannes Stripple
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Urban Development ◽  
Development Process ◽  
Experimental Approach ◽  
Development Program ◽  
Research Centers ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Situation ◽  
World Class

While traditional forms of urban planning are oriented towards the future, the recent turn towards experimental and challenge-led urban developments is characterized by an overarching presentism. We explore in this article how an experimental approach to urban planning can consider the long-term through setting-up ‘conversations with a future situation.’ In doing so, we draw on a unique experiment: Råängen, a piece of farmland in Lund (Sweden) owned by the Cathedral. The plot is part of Brunnshög, a large urban development program envisioned to accommodate homes, workspaces, and world-class research centers in the coming decades. We trace how Lund Cathedral became an unusual developer involved in ‘planning for thousand years,’ deployed a set of art commissions to allow reflections about values, belief, time, faith, and became committed to play a central role in the development process. The art interventions staged conversations with involved actors as well as publics geographically and temporally far away. The Råängen case illustrates how long-term futures can be fruitfully brought to the present through multiple means of imagination. A key insight for urban planning is how techniques of financial discounting and municipal zoning plans could be complemented with trust in reflective conversations in which questions are prioritized over answers.

scholarly journals Why, and how will it look? Evaluating answers of energy experts concerning the German Energiewende and its implication for communication efforts

2019 ◽  
pp. 59-79
Author(s):  
Sebastian Kreuz ◽  
Eugenia Ploß
Keyword(s):  
General Public ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Energy Transition ◽  
Economic Feasibility ◽  
Important Goal ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Challenges ◽  
Communication Challenges

The implementation of the German energy transition (Energiewende) is unclearly framed. The future of the transition depends on more than just technological development or economic feasibility. Rather, a positive attitude and an understanding by the general public are critical to its success. Therefore, communicating the complex, polarized and long-term process in an objective way is essential. We show that despite the alleged clarity of goals, German stakeholders have very diverse reasons for their support of the energy transition. One key reason mentioned is climate protection. Another important goal is the desired independence from energy imports. This diversity is at the heart of the communication challenges. We see a wide variety of goals triggering trade-offs and challenges in understanding the process. Therefore, we suggest an infographic as an approach to communicating the energy transition to the general public with a focus on goals and related future challenges of the transition. We conclude that communication tools should promote an inclusive discussion and debate regarding the goals and challenges of a process, such as the energy transition, to help answer the question: How do we want to live in the future?  Keywords: climate change, energy transition, communication, framing, media

Analysis of Housing for Rent in Borderlands

2020 ◽  
pp. 115-131
Author(s):  
Jacinto Garrido Velarde ◽  
Betina Cavaco de São Pedro ◽  
Consuelo Mora
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Real Estate ◽  
Real Estate Market ◽  
Land Market ◽  
Opinion Survey ◽  
The Real Estate ◽  
Border City ◽  
The Real Estate Market ◽  
The Future

The current problems in the construction, sale, purchase, offer, or search of housing, present questions about the future of the real estate market, questions that will have to be possible solutions in the medium and long term. This document proposes obtaining primary information through “Opinion survey aimed at the population on housing and its influence on the land market,” through an applied methodology and variables associated with the survey. This chapter elaborates a methodological proposal to analyze the situation of the houses for rent in the border city of Badajoz to provide a document of support to the professionals and technicians who are dedicated to the territory and urban planning, to solve the problems about the construction, sale, purchase, offer, or search of housing.

scholarly journals Committed and projected future changes in global peatlands – continued transient model simulations since the Last Glacial Maximum

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (12) ◽  
pp. 3657-3687
Author(s):  
Jurek Müller ◽  
Fortunat Joos
Keyword(s):  
Last Glacial Maximum ◽  
Glacial Maximum ◽  
Future Scenarios ◽  
Dynamic Global Vegetation Model ◽  
Last Glacial ◽  
Climate Anomalies ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Last Glacial Maximum ◽  
The Last Glacial

Abstract. Peatlands are diverse wetland ecosystems distributed mostly over the northern latitudes and tropics. Globally they store a large portion of the global soil organic carbon and provide important ecosystem services. The future of these systems under continued anthropogenic warming and direct human disturbance has potentially large impacts on atmospheric CO2 and climate. We performed global long-term projections of peatland area and carbon over the next 5000 years using a dynamic global vegetation model forced with climate anomalies from 10 models of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) and three standard future scenarios. These projections are seamlessly continued from a transient simulation from the Last Glacial Maximum to the present to account for the full transient history and are continued beyond 2100 with constant boundary conditions. Our results suggest short to long-term net losses of global peatland area and carbon, with higher losses under higher-emission scenarios. Large parts of today's active northern peatlands are at risk, whereas peatlands in the tropics and, in case of mitigation, eastern Asia and western North America can increase their area and carbon stocks. Factorial simulations reveal committed historical changes and future rising temperature as the main driver of future peatland loss and increasing precipitations as the driver for regional peatland expansion. Additional simulations forced with climate anomalies from a subset of climate models which follow the extended CMIP6 scenarios, transient until 2300, show qualitatively similar results to the standard scenarios but highlight the importance of extended transient future scenarios for long-term carbon cycle projections. The spread between simulations forced with different climate model anomalies suggests a large uncertainty in projected peatland changes due to uncertain climate forcing. Our study highlights the importance of quantifying the future peatland feedback to the climate system and its inclusion into future earth system model projections.

scholarly journals Repositioning People in Creative Futures: A Method to Create Sound Advice with Exploratory Scenarios

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-38
Author(s):  
Guillermo Velasco ◽  
◽  
Rafael Popper ◽  
Ian Miles ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Policy Recommendations ◽  
Future Scenarios ◽  
Policy Decisions ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Near Future ◽  
As If

Foresight scenarios are not only useful presentational devices to show that many aspects of the future are open. Scenarios are means for generating advice that helps policymakers initiate actions in the present or near future that will be of long-term significance. Despite the influence that such advice may have on policy decisions, the Foresight literature has paid very little attention to the creation of policy recommendations. Though reports of scenario exercises frequently conclude with lists of recommendations that follow from the study, there is very little explication of the process whereby advice is elicited from the examination of these future scenarios. This paper addresses this gap, examining how the generation of recommendations is related to the development of scenarios within multiple future repositioning workshop settings. It focuses on the fluency and originality of these recommendations, and how this is influenced by repositioning participants in highly transformational scenarios. Repositioning is the process whereby participants are invited to imagine themselves playing roles in hypothetical future contexts, and on that basis to make decisions or devise strategies as if they actually were immersed in these circumstances. The method proposed and the findings of the case study have implications for why and how this future repositioning approach can be incorporated as a ‘key feature’ in the design of Foresight activities. The aim is also to raise awareness of the need for more exploration of Foresight recommendation methodology.

Devolution and Aging Policy: Racing to the Bottom in Long-Term Care

1997 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carroll L. Estes ◽  
Karen W. Linkins
Keyword(s):  
Long Term Care ◽  
Nonprofit Sector ◽  
State Level ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
The United States ◽  
Term Care ◽  
New Federalism ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
The Future

For two decades, New Federalism, devolution, and other challenges to the federal role in domestic health and human services policy have fundamentally shaped the structure and delivery of long-term care in the United States. Devolution evokes crucial questions concerning the future of universal entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare and, with them, the future of aging and long-term care policy. This article examines the implications of the “devolution revolution” for long-term care in the context of the sociodemographics of aging and the managed care movement. Central issues are the extent to which state-level discretionary policy options (1) alter priorities, services, and benefits for the elderly and disabled; (2) foster a race to the bottom in long-term care; (3) promote generational, gender, racial and ethnic, and social class trade-offs; and (4) fundamentally alter the role and capacity of nonprofit sector services that comprise a significant part of the long-term care continuum.

Envisioning the future of transhumant pastoralism through participatory scenario planning: a case study in Spain

2013 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Oteros-Rozas ◽  
Berta Martín-López ◽  
César A. López ◽  
Ignacio Palomo ◽  
José A. González
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Scenario Planning ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Ecological Knowledge ◽  
Future Scenarios ◽  
Human Wellbeing ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Future

Transhumance is a practice of nomadic pastoralism that was once common in Mediterranean Europe. This livestock-rearing system is associated with the maintenance of cultural landscapes and the delivery of a wide range of ecosystem services. Although transhumance is still practised in Spain on a small scale, its future is highly uncertain because of socioeconomic constraints and other drivers of change. A participatory scenario-planning exercise with 68 participants, including shepherds, decision-makers, veterinarians, environmental experts, intermediaries from the wool and meat markets, and researchers, was used to envision plausible futures for transhumance and to enlighten policy-making for the maintenance of this practice along the Conquense Drove Road, one of the largest foot-based transhumant social-ecological networks still in use in Spain. Specifically, the aims were to: (1) analyse the drivers influencing the future of transhumance, (2) depict the current situation of transhumance, (3) envision future scenarios for this activity, (4) analyse ecosystem services’ trade-offs between different scenarios and their effect on human wellbeing, and (5) provide some insights for policy-making related to the maintenance of transhumance. Four plausible future scenarios were built, each showing clear trade-offs in the delivery of 19 ecosystem services, such as food, fibre, ecological connectivity, soil fertility, air quality, fire prevention, cultural identity, local ecological knowledge and cultural exchanges, as well as the different dimensions of human wellbeing. As a result of the participatory process, nine management strategies were identified for the maintenance of transhumance. Priority was given to the implementation of payment schemes for ecosystem services, the enhancement of social capital among transhumants and institutional coordination, the improvement of product marketing, and the restoration and conservation of drove roads. Finally, the implications of the current reform of the Common Agricultural Policy in the European Union for the maintenance of transhumance are discussed.

scholarly journals Adaptation techniques of an urban planning due to climate change

2021 ◽  
Vol 263 ◽  
pp. 05013
Author(s):  
Natalia Bakaeva ◽  
Maria Suvorova ◽  
Roman Sheps ◽  
Alexandra Kormina
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Urban Development ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
New Challenges

In this paper there is reviewed a concept of adaptation of an urban planning to the changing climate conditions. The statements of the Framework Convention on Climate Change, UN FCCC, which are actively discussed these days in conditions of new challenges, determine a necessity of applying scientifically reasoned approaches to the landscape development and city transformation considering the climate change in the urban environment. There are discussed statements of climate change adapted concept of the urban planning and are reviewed examples of urban solutions corresponding to these statements. The authors are convinced that problem solving of the climate change adapted urban planning requires an interdisciplinary approach, embracing multiple scientific directions such as ecological, urban, social, technical and technological. In this aspect the concept of adaptation the urban planning to volatile climate conditions represent a long-term strategy of the urban development, which is, first of all, requires a preparation of a roadmap and then decision making, which would conduce to forming a fully comfortable and safe urban environment.

scholarly journals The Eco-Techno Spectrum: Exploring Knowledge Systems’ Challenges in Green Infrastructure Management

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Marissa Matsler ◽  
Thaddeus R. Miller ◽  
Peter M. Groffman
Keyword(s):  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Knowledge System ◽  
Knowledge Systems ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Technical Problems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Standard Procedures ◽  
The Us

Infrastructure crises are not only technical problems for engineers to solve—they also present social, ecological, financial, and political challenges. Addressing infrastructure problems thus requires a robust planning process that includes examination of the social and ecological systems supporting infrastructure, alongside technical systems. An integrative Social, Ecological, and Technological Systems (SETS) analysis of infrastructure solutions can complement the planning process by revealing potential trade-offs that are often overlooked in standard procedures. We explore the interconnected SETS of the infrastructure problem in the US through comparative case studies of green infrastructure (GI) development in Portland and Baltimore. Currently a popular infrastructure solution to a wide variety of urban ills, GI is the use and mimicry of ecological components (e.g., plants) to perform municipal services (e.g., stormwater management). We develop the ecological-technological spectrum—or ‘eco-techno spectrum’—as a framing tool to bridge all three SETS dimensions. The eco-techno spectrum becomes a platform to explore the institutional knowledge system dynamics of GI development where social dimensions are organized across ecological and technological aspects of GI, exposing how governance differs across specific forms of ecological and technological hybridity. In this study, we highlight the knowledge system challenges of urban planning institutions as a key consideration in the realization of innovative infrastructure crisis ‘fixes.’ Disconnected definition and measurement of GI emerge as two distinct challenges across the knowledge systems examined. By revealing and discussing these challenges, we can begin to recognize—and better plan for—gaps in municipal planning knowledge systems, promoting decisions that address the roots of infrastructure crises rather than treating only their symptoms.

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