Future Forests, Water, and Quality of Life in Northeastern Minnesota

Photo Credit

Brian Sturtevant

Northern Research Station scientists and their collaborators are combining two methods, strategic foresight and landscape modeling, to help scientists and land managers imagine different potential futures for northeastern Minnesota landscapes. The scenarios developed during this project highlight various possibilities and the effects they might have on nature and society. In general, scenarios can help guide decision making towards a preferred future by exploring a range of options and looking at unexpected consequences. The ultimate goal of the research is to support current-day planning by providing a glimpse of what could happen in the future.

This work was funded in part by the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.

Key Findings

• In a recent workshop, participants from conservation, forestry, research, tourism, and Tribal Nations rated ‘financial security’ (of both individuals and communities) and ‘action regarding climate change’ as high priorities because of their potential to cause large-scale changes.
• Based on these ideas, the workshop participants came up with four different possible futures. Each future focuses on either financial security or climate change action, and there are different details for what could happen in each one.
• This study highlights the advantages of blending multiple strategic foresight tools with landscape modeling to generate alternative future storylines that are informative, helpful, and believable. 

Northern Research Station scientists conducted a series of virtual workshops with over 80 participants from northeastern Minnesota. Together, the participants developed four scenarios depicting different possible futures for a large, multi-county watershed feeding into Lake Superior. The watershed included rural areas, suburban areas, and cities like Duluth.

As a first step in scenario development, the workshop participants rated a series of issues for importance and uncertainty. The two highest rated issues were the financial security of individuals and communities, and policies to address climate change. These issues were used to create the four different scenarios about the future.

At the same time, scientists used a computer model called LANDIS-II to create a landscape change scenario based on current real-world trends. The scientists presented the alternative future scenarios and baseline ecological scenario back to the workshop participants for further input and refinement. Using landscape modeling made the scenario development process more scientifically accurate.

Scenario ‘Translation’
Landscape modeling enables translating plausible, “storyline” future scenarios of social and ecological dynamics into numbers and data. In turn, this allows more objective evaluation of future scenarios related to, for example, what we get from forests, how water behaves, how much carbon is stored, and other benefits we get from nature.

Outcomes

Compared to traditional landscape change studies, strategic foresight in this research has made it possible to envision a much wider range of possible futures that could be important for planners, managers, and policymakers.

This study shows the advantages of combining different strategic foresight methods with computer-based landscape modeling. It has helped to create different future scenarios that are: 1) informative (by showing a wide range of possibilities), 2) helpful (by showing strong differences between scenarios), and 3) believable (based on strong science and input from stakeholders).

The results from the model will help guide decisions as land managers work towards their goals for the future. The aim is to help with planning today by presenting an idea of what might happen tomorrow.