Visualizing, Illustrating and Communicating Future Water Visions to Support Learning and Sustainability Transitions

1. Introduction

Scientific consensus suggests that the scale of global challenges faced in the current interlocking systemic polycrisis will require transformative change over a long-time scale to deliver sustainable outcomes, with different actions needed over different time horizons [1,2,3]. Global pressures have also resulted in cross-disciplinary consensus that in the water management context it is time to both critically review the effectiveness of existing policies, approaches, processes, technologies and mechanisms and take a fresh and more systematic exploration of how water management might look, cope and adapt from the present into the future [4,5,6,7,8]. This is of course not limited to water management but in depth coverage of other areas is beyond the remit of this paper, though we touch on different domains and sectors where they directly interconnect with water. Paradigm shifts and sustainability transitions for water management are key and a large volume of work exists highlighting the transformational changes required in long-term horizons, principles, approaches and strategies, as well as action, including towards more regenerative systems [9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17].

Consequently, to visualize and communicate these shifts, transitions and changes, it becomes necessary to collectively identify positive visions of the future. Such visioning and resultant visions provide hope, direction, gain commitment for a common cause and can lead to co-design of effective responses and programmes of action for a better future, pulling on transformational innovation, rather than dwelling on doom, gloom, catastrophe and plummeting people into eco-anxiety, despair and reactive responses. Visions can also act at the deeper level of peoples’ values and mental models; move effort away from "futures modelling" based on past trends and current system limitations; and cut through often contradictory individual and collective short-term opinions and actions. Visions provide a pathway towards long-term desired goals and a way of envisioning alternative futures [18,19,20,21,22].

However, understanding, translating, visualising and communicating the concepts, principles, innovations, layers of disciplines, scales, dimensions and actions behind paradigm shifts, sustainability transitions and transformational change are major challenges. These challenges require responses that act systemically, through circularity and across the nexus, thus requiring reframing and viewing our world as an overlapping, interconnected and interacting complex system rather than a complicated system. Sustainable and resilient adaptive water futures/catchment landscapes must therefore be viewed and visualised as complex socio-ecological-technical systems (SETS). Socio-ecological-technical systems (SETS) are defined where interactions occur across social and economic systems (socio); ecosystems, habitats and other natural systems (ecological); and infrastructure, built, engineered and technological systems (technical). This requires sectors to view these interacting systems as one integrated system rather than as separate systems. Several authors consider a false separation of these components (in conceptualisation, policy and management) to be a major reason for environmental and social decline that has reinforced a paradigm of failing attempts at protecting the ‘natural world’ from the ‘other separate’ degenerative, unsustainable, ‘human world’. This separation establishes conflicting and adversarial agendas in which nature generally loses out. Only once SETS are acknowledged and reframed across multiple domains can further effective, equitable, resilient and sustainable transformational change occur [20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28].

In addition, approaches to visioning and envisioning aim to enable people to suspend reality, visit a positive version of the future, bring back what they saw and shape it into something in the present that can lead back to the future. Such ‘backcasting’ methods produce visionary images of long-term futures that can motivate accelerated movement towards achieving sustainability goals. Backcasting often requires ‘generation of images of the future’, ‘construction of future visions’ or similar [29]. However, whilst visioning and backcasting is the act or process of making such mental ‘images’, what remains after this to represent that process and the futures discussed, is often not explicitly considered; artefacts remaining are often not coherent images or pictures or illustrations. Very few studies go beyond textual or diagrammatic future representations and [30] refer to these ‘images’ as being “…mental images of attainable futures…shaped by a collection of actors.” (pg. 1035); this is not to say all backcasting projects do not produce artistic depictions beyond these mental ones. Whilst artistic depictions of snapshots of the future abound for various topics and themes on the internet, they are often not tied to real-world visioning, backcasting or futures and are thus more akin to science fiction [31]. However, if future ‘images’ are to be powerful enough to capture people’s minds and imaginations and inspire exploration of challenges and opportunities, then backcasting and futures illustrations and artefacts need to creatively present what is possible through a range of media [28,31].

This brings us into the world of visualisation and communication (and to some extent e-learning), where storytelling and realistic illustrative depictions enable objects, people, nature, technology, infrastructures, systems and society to be situated in and connected across these futures, alongside the textual descriptions of the plans, goals, objectives, outcomes, feasibility, potential and consequences. The end result needs to be a way to communicate these whole-system illustrations of the future to audiences who were not party to the workshops and activities through which they were derived and whom did not formulate the textual or mental visions or images. In addition, in a fully participatory way, illustrated artefacts can be used to include people from across all walks of life in their re-interpretation and re-configuration ex-post. This can help non-scientists feel they are not excluded as opposed to always included; they can engage if and when they want rather than throughout their whole life [33]. As [23] also notes, envisioning the future with communities enables individuals and groups to bring aspects of their cultural and sub-cultural attributes into an otherwise potentially dominantly technocratic process.

From a science communication point of view, whether that be environmental science, climate change science or futures communication, the selection and use of messaging, narratives, storytelling and visual imagery has been subject to substantial research and practical guides issued from various organisations [31,32,33,34,35,36,37], [ISO 14063:2020]. Futures communication is in its early days and as [41] assert, whilst communication is noted as a crucial part of futures work, there are areas with limited or no published work and a definition of futures communication is needed. In a UK context [40] produced a list of ‘top tips’ for futures communication, synthesised from a network of over 300 Futures practitioners.

With this context and background in mind, the Environment Agency England, the Westcountry Rivers Trust and Plan Vision aimed to co-create a, proof of concept, interactive platform through which to explore illustrations and narrative visions of the future. Platform content would be underpinned with an extensive evidence synthesis [20], as well as real-world examples of the ‘art of possible’ and ‘pockets of the future in the present’. The Water Visions Visualisation Platform was co-created to achieve this aim and to act as a platform for further information collation, organisation, communication and deliberation.

The rest of this paper proceeds as follows: the next section outlines the Water Visions Visualisation Platform co-creation methodology. This is followed by a section outlining a brief ‘user journey’ through the Platform to demonstrate the illustrations and interactive elements (to undertake a full interactive journey please visit: https://wrt.org.uk/project/water-visions/). The penultimate section provides a preliminary evaluation of the Platform based on the initial monitoring and evaluation activities and contextualizes them in the literature. A final section brings all previous sections together in concluding remarks and recommendations.

2. Co-creation methodology

The Water Visions Visualisation Platform (‘Platform’) project set out to co-develop illustrations (visualisations) of future regenerative, sustainable, resilient, shared and socially just landscapes to showcase and communicate evidence-based material and the ‘art of the possible’ in relation to sustainability transitions with a focus on water. The aim was to provide accessible, inclusive visualisations and other supporting content to enable stakeholders with highly diverse levels of prior knowledge and technical skills to engage with and co-develop a shared vision for future SETS landscapes.

The illustrations and wider Platform needed to help illustrate landscape wide interventions (urban and rural) as well as coherent systemic programmes of interventions; illustrate and promote consideration of different routes to resilient, sustainable, regenerative and socially just landscapes to benefit all; depict a shift to more coherent management and governance of artificial (grey) and natural (blue/green) infrastructure, technology and processes to deliver resilient and sustainable water and environmental systems; highlight possible futures for farming/food production, land management, water service provision and waste processing, blue-green urban landscapes and the increased (but appropriate) use of nature-based solutions to support thriving communities and businesses; be flexible in terms of self-guided or pre-designed tours of the material and for updating, wider input and further co-design.

Consequently, stages of the work included:

• a rapid scoping review and workshops on key concepts, principles and approaches identified in the science discourse, such as systems thinking and analysis; management change; circular economy principles; regenerative methods; water-energy-food-nexus; polycentric governance; co-creation; shared values; the Three Horizons Framework; scenario planning and policy mapping; Systems Innovation Approach; future visioning, future-scaping, envisioning, transition pathways, adaptive pathways and the ‘What if’ approach; forecasting and backcasting; bioregional planning; landscape frameworks and optioneering; and communication and pedagogy [17,20,23,29,31,36,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61];
• synthesis of this material into provisional scenarios based on axes of econo-centric to eco-centric and technology for private good to technology for public good.
• co-development of a visualisation ‘architecture’ framework to accommodate visual and narrative description of elaborative content and synthesis;
• co-development of conceptual and technical designs for the illustrations and supporting information;
• co-development of interactive content with links to supporting resources;
• delivery of initial ‘pilot-testing’ to high-level audiences and a formal launch to wider audiences.

As the visualisations represent the physical landscape with horizons, paradigms, scenarios, visions and futures playing out across them, the three detailed visualisations and one wireframe (to represent a socio-eco-centric scenario which is difficult to illustrate and poorly supported by easily accessible by literature and/or to enable stakeholder and community workshopping) are consequently referred to as:

• Landscape 1 (L1) - ‘Unsustainable’;
• Landscape 2 (L2) - ‘In Transition’;
• Landscape 3 (L3) - ‘Regenerative Sustainability’;
• Landscape 4 (L4) – Regenerative Utopia/Transformed.

In a very general sense L1 operates within an ‘econo-technical’ paradigm (economics and technology are the dominant drivers); L2 and L3 in an ‘eco-technical’ paradigm (ecology and technology are increasingly the dominant drivers) and L3 and L4 operate within a socio-ecological-(technological) paradigm (where social and ecological aspects are the dominant drivers with technology focused to support the optimisation of these). These paradigms are described further as vignettes in [20].

To fully commence the co-creation process, a reframing of the ‘desirable’ characteristics of the ‘art of the possible’ for such future water visions of the complex catchment landscape systems and sub-systems was required, which is summarised in Table 1. This was used as a starting and return point to ensure the visualisations were progressing as needed. The co-creation methodology subsequently took the following steps:

i.

Co-defining the system and timescales: sub-systems, capitals, features and actions;

ii.

Assessing and visualising system services and nexus outcomes (‘benefits’);

iii.

Co-production of illustrations, messages and narrative content.

The methodology to co-create the visualisation platform developed and evolved organically as the project participants developed an understanding of each other’s perspectives, knowledges, ideas, preferences, ways of working and requirements through meetings, workshops and other communications (e.g. emails, documents). The Theory of Change approach [62,63] was used to track the work for monitoring and evaluation.

2.1. Co-defining the system and timescales: sub-systems, capitals, features and actions

A number of online tools, such as MURAL, were used to facilitate meetings and workshops and digital workspaces, such as MS Teams, were used to share materials, resources, working documents and other files. MURAL boards covered (example in Figure 1):

• A workshop to brainstorm visualisation of sustainable landscapes – to collate knowledge, references, examples, images, diagrams, ideas and suggestions on perspectives, approaches, frameworks, tools, innovations, features etc to include in the visualisation platform;
• A workshop to undertake scenario and policy mapping – to map out existing policy and suggest potential future policy requirements for three scenarios/horizons/visions along a timeline out to 2050-80 (or ‘open’), covering policy, governance and society and identifying barriers to change at the micro and macro scale;
• A workshop to determine Landscape 1 and 2 feature label allocation, messaging and narrative development tasks – agreeing on label length, content and convention was crucial to ensure consistency in the visualisation platform textual content to enable ease of recognition, association and navigation during the user experience;
• A workshop to explore Landscape 3 features and undertake sharing, monitoring and evaluation planning – to brainstorm ideas for a landscape representing transformation/transition (i.e. including full implementation across the SETS of regenerative, circular, nexus approaches etc).

These MURAL boards were active documents that were contributed to by all participants throughout the project duration. Boards were synthesised into Excel spreadsheets using a bespoke structure based on the content and architecture needed to begin to develop and populate the elements of the visualisations. A deliberative process was undertaken [64,65] using the initial MURALs and spreadsheets to determine the elements that would form the main foci for the illustrations. The spreadsheets were also used to track all of the components required in their co-creation (images, links, resources).

The elements represented sub-systems – water, energy, waste, transport, food; capitals – natural, built/infrastructure and socio-cultural; assets/features – individual technologies, processes, policies and transactions; actions/pathways – shifts in function and feature representing steps of change; and timescales – present, range of futures. Repositories, inventories and finally an online Content Organiser (Figure 2) were iteratively developed to dynamically collate all elements underpinning the visualisation platform architecture into one place. The creation of the repositories and inventories enabled the illustration elements to be finalised and communicated to Plan Vision (project partner illustrator) to enable the illustration work to commence. The evolution of the repositories and inventories into the Content Organiser then enabled the mapping of the elements and illustrations to a ThingLink architecture in order to begin construction of the interactive visualisation Platform. However, before this step was undertaken, ‘benefit wheels’ were developed in order to enable users to compare the ‘3 capitals’ performance of the outlined elements.

2.2. Assessing and visualising system services and nexus outcomes (‘benefits’)

The Local Action Project’s Opportunities Assessment Method [66,67], which is used to visualise various metrics in the form of ‘wheels’, was built on and adapted for application to the visualization platform to produce wheels to embed in the Platform. The adaptations required co-defining and adding additional metrics to represent benefits provided by the landscapes, zones and features with a focus on their performance and contributions to sustainability. Additional metrics focused on resilience, sustainability and the nexus components and led to the development of two separate wheels focused on System Services and Nexus Outcomes, which are summarised in Table 2 and an example wheel illustration in Figure 3. The Content Organiser was used to collate expert opinion scores (provided by project participants) for each of the System Services and Nexus Outcomes metrics. This was undertaken at the whole landscape level, for each landscape zone and system and for all the features within each landscape zone and system. The wheels enable the performance and contribution of the different features, zones and systems to be compared across the landscapes, as well as being able to undertake a comparison at the overarching landscape level. The wheels were based on deliberation by project participants in the first instance but allow for wider participatory deliberative discussion and revision or modification through future co-development phases.

2.3. Co-production of illustrations, messages and narrative content

The completion of the Content Organiser and the initiation of the construction of the wheels, enabled the project to shift into the illustration, messaging and narrative co-production phase. During the workshops it emerged that more than illustrations would be needed to convey the concepts, principles and messages the project aimed to communicate and therefore the approach was modified so that accompanying each Landscape, Zone, System and Feature was a detailed textual narrative to provide context and depth to the illustrations. Illustrations and narratives were drawn and written iteratively in parallel to enable them to eventually be connected together within the ThingLink Platform. The Platform allows for further narrative and other information and media to be attached through embedding additional links to further better describe and illustrate concepts, principles and messages and to provide case studies of them the concepts ‘in action’.

Illustrations of the main three Landscapes were sketched on layers of A0 (L1-3) tracing paper in ink as wireframes during the first iteration (Figure 4), allowing time for feedback and style and content shifts as needed. Vignettes or ‘zoomed in’ areas, which became the ‘Zones’ were also produced at this time. This style of illustration and process was consciously chosen, as it brings humanity, comfort and connection into the illustrations, which can be missing from illustrations and graphics produced through more graphic design and computer aided design (CAD) methods and processes. Following this first stage, an initial colour version of each whole Landscape and Zone containing detailed Features was produced, shared and reflected upon for Landscapes 1, 2 and 3. Minor changes, edits and updates were then made, before the final illustrations were produced.

The whole landscape colour illustrations bring the Platform user/viewer into the world of water and land management, situating them as the explorer of this world – in either a self-guided or guided way depending on journey type, which is discussed in the following section. The Zones and Systems enable users to zoom in to a more manageable and visually more ‘friendly’ vignette scale, which draws them into the detail of what is featured and what is happening in the Zone or System they have chosen to explore. As the user becomes more comfortable with what they are viewing, they may choose to explore the detail of the Features and interact with the clickable elements of the Landscapes.

Each layer of the illustrations – Landscape, Zone/System, Feature - has clickable elements. These clickable elements contain the narrative for the element, as well as multi-media links to images, further information and resources (Figure 5). The narratives are written in an accessible, engaging language and in styles representative of what needs to be communicated through each, depending on the Landscape within which the user finds themself: Landscape 1 - providing reflection on what is not working well; Landscape 2 - providing an indication of a shift or change to what is better for the environment, society and the economy; Landscape 3 – providing insight into how the new innovations or approaches have positively influenced the Landscape; Landscape 4 – wireframe only (for use in co-visioning and co-creation workshops).

Some of the narratives were co-produced with collaborators external to the project team who are experts in their field, such as coastal and marine environments. The narratives were also required to more explicitly depict messages around the socio-cultural institutions and infrastructures that play-out across the landscapes. During the co-creation process it became apparent that depicting such features in the illustrations would require a different approach than for natural or built environment infrastructure - social and cultural capitals, ‘assets’ and services are more difficult to visualize in detail through imagery. Additionally, considering which institutions and decision-making structures will be needed in a future where citizens are more educated, knowledgeable, skilled, engaged and empowered required extra attention in the workshops. To accommodate these perspectives, additional categories were added to the Wheels previously described. Future phases of the project aim to more fully consider additional multi-media devices that could be used to better depict and explore these dimensions of the Landscapes, which highlight the complex interactions amongst changing knowledges, changing institutions and broadening imaginations (both public and institutional) that require representation. This is particularly the case for the Regenerative Utopia Landscape (4), which is potentially highly populated with more abstract socio-cultural, eco-technical, eco-economic and socio-eco-political concepts.

The previous section describes the steps in the co-creation methodology. The following section describes an example user journey to demonstrate the steps that might be taken in exploring the illustrations, narratives and multi-media resources that have been populated into the proof-of-concept Platform.

3. User Journey

Undertaking the co-creation methodology described in the previous section and bringing together all of the elements and components resulted in a Platform with the architecture outlined in Figure 6. To navigate this complex architecture a User Guide is included in the landing page. In this section an example user journey is provided to indicate how a Platform user might move in and around the architecture.

The Platform can be used as a resource in a number of ways:

• As a resource to support fully guided webinar presentations with pre-set narratives or ‘user journeys’ through the use of slide decks.
• As a resource to support a hybrid - part-guided, part self-exploratory - live online session.
• As a resource to support an entirely self-guided session through a user-led journey.

Within this paper only the first resource example is possible to demonstrate. To undertake the third option - a live, entirely self-guided session through a user-led journey – please refer to the previously provided web URL address. Figure 11 illustrates a user journey with a pre-set narrative focused on agriculture. The steps in the user journey are intended to guide the user around the Platform to maximise convenience and focus and to avoid cognitive overload:

• Landing page – Welcome video, Introduction, User Guide, Landscapes 1-4;
• Landscape 1 – Landscape 1: visualisation of an Unsustainable scenario landscape;
• Landscape 1 – Overall scenario landscape description and scenario wheels;
• Landscape 1 – Zone: Agriculture; Feature: Livestock sheds;
• Landscape 2 - Visualisation and description for Landscape 2: In transition;
• Landscape 2 – Landscape 2: In transition wheels;
• Landscape 2 - Zone: Agriculture; Feature: Livestock sheds;
• Landscape 2 - Zone: Agriculture description, list of Features and wheels;
• Landscape 2 - Zone: Agriculture; Feature: Animal waste digestors description;
• Landscape 2 - Zone: Agriculture; Feature: Animal waste digestors wheels;
• Landscape 3 - Visualisation of Regenerative Sustainability;
• Landscape 3 – Description and wheels.
• (optional step of considering Landscape 4 wireframe)

Upon interacting with the clickable Features, the user is drawn further into the layers of information and invited to explore more about each Feature to the level to which they feel comfortable. Shown first in the pop-up factsheets are the narrative text and wheels. If the user clicks the arrows in the bottom right corner of the pop-up box, they can navigate through a range of additional links to multi-media resources, such as reports, journal papers, magazine articles, videos and other external materials, which describe the feature in action. Once finished, clicking on the cross at the top right corner of the pop-up box closes the box and the user is back in the Zone or Landscape. From there they can consider their next element to explore or can return to the home page using the navigator in the top left corner of the screen.

The Platform was demonstrated to high-level audiences during 2022 whilst in development and formally launched in April 2023. The following section summarises preliminary monitoring and evaluation undertaken after these activities.

The platform also features other functionality to encourage interest, exploration and use such as:

• A swipe animation from Landscape 1 to Landscape 3;
• A simple animation illustrating the reimagining of wastewater treatment plants as circular ‘bioresource centres’ operating across the nexus;
• Downloadable illustrations, for, for instance, developing bespoke user journeys.

4. Preliminary Evaluation

Once the proof of concept demonstration Platform was completed, a preliminary evaluation was undertaken, which comprised two aspects: (i) evaluation against criteria from reviewed literature; (ii) evaluation through pilot testing and feedback forms.

Criteria for evaluation were synthesized from relevant literature and focused on implementation of a futures approach [40], effective communication of futures alternatives [68] and meaningful and effective adaptation communication [69]. The final 40 evaluation criteria are summarised in Table 3 alongside evaluation of whether or not the Platform achieved the criteria and how. The Platform achieved all 40 criteria, highlighting the importance of the intensive and extensive co-design, co-development and co-creation methodology implemented. [68] also noted the importance of improving the quality of visualisation tools and involving stakeholders in co-development, as well as ensuring tools are accompanied by dedicated community engagement capability if aiming to make landscape science more accessible and applicable to current and future users.

Whilst the Platform was co-created by participants from three different types of environmental organisation (charity, non-departmental public body, consultancy practice) with a diverse range of knowledge and expertise, pilot testing with other audiences was required to enable initial monitoring, evaluation, feedback and review activities.

Pilot testing took the form of webinar feedback, which was collected after providing two fully guided webinar presentations with pre-set user journeys through the use of slide decks to high-level audiences on 14^th July 2022 and 19^th January 2023. Answers to direct questions asked in feedback were answered during the webinar. Feedback received at both webinars was accommodated to enable the Platform to be revised and updated ahead of the launch of the demonstration Platform. In addition, website feedback form responses were gathered after the demonstration Platform was officially launched via the Water Visions website on 14^th April 2023 alongside other feedback submitted during the launch via social media and other contact. As the evaluation is still ongoing, statistical results are not detailed here. Instead a summary of feedback questions and comments from the webinars and survey is collated in Table 4 by theme to indicate the overall impression of the Platform at the time of writing.

Feedback fell across the 10 themes of General, Navigation, Visuals/Platform, Futures, Video/animation/sound, Wheels, Technical Information, Audience/Users, Learning and Glitching. Overall the feedback was positive with some technical information queries and minor glitches experienced during use. The majority of feedback focused on visuals, futures and users, which was to be expected during pilot testing. This provided further evidence through which to verify the achievement of the evaluation criteria in Table 3. By meeting these criteria the Platform achieves the implementation of a futures approach, effective communication of futures alternatives, meaningful and effective adaptation communication, improvement in the quality of visualisation tools and co-creation with stakeholders. The only gap the Platform and project team could not address was to ensure tools are accompanied by dedicated community engagement capability as this is subject to a range of factors outside their control.

Consequently, through consideration of the evaluation criteria and collated feedback, it was determined that the Platform achieved the aim and objectives of the project, which were to:

• co-create an interactive platform through which to explore illustrations and narrative visions of the future underpinned by an extensive evidence synthesis, as well as real-world examples of the ‘art of possible’ and ‘pockets of the future in the present’.
• co-develop illustrations of future regenerative, sustainable, resilient, shared and socially just landscapes to showcase and communicate evidence-based material in relation to sustainability transitions with a focus on water.
• provide accessible, inclusive visualisations and other supporting content to enable stakeholders with highly diverse levels of prior knowledge and technical skills to engage with and co-develop a shared vision for future SETS landscapes.
• provide a robust platform for further information collation, organisation, communication and deliberation.

In summary, the preliminary evaluation highlights that a magnitude and diversity of co-benefits have been realised in the most cost-effective and efficient co-production process. Ongoing co-development and further monitoring and evaluation activities will assess the Platform in relation to the Theory of Change set for the project (beyond the scope of this paper).

5. Conclusions

The Water Visions Visualisation Platform project set out to illustrate and communicate evidence and insights for water system management in a current and future context of an interlocking systemic polycrisis. In particular, concepts, principles and interventions for water (and nexus) system transformation.. This was partly in response to comments and questions from decision-makers during the course of the literature scoping synthesis such as “those are just academic ideas aren’t they?; “but what does that look like?”; “how does x intervention relate to y intervention?”; “that is just a concept what does it look like in practice? Further, the aim was to illustrate these in the context of transition from unsustainable to sustainable, indeed more regenerative landscape-level scenarios. Evidence and literature describes many of the concepts and principles and interventions separately, so it was important to bring them together to demonstrate their interactions and how they work together as a coherent ‘set’ of changes. The Platform supports not only communication and learning about potential futures and their visualisation but also provides a basis for stimulating further collation, deliberation and ‘co-creation’ in both generic and place-based contexts. The co-creation of a, proof of concept, interactive platform comprising coherent illustrations, narrative, examples and resources of visions of the future as landscape visualisations enables such futures to be explored and interrogated through ‘wheels’. The Platform content was underpinned with an extensive evidence synthesis [19], as well as real-world examples of the ‘art of possible’ and ‘pockets of the future in the present’ to demonstrate that many of the identified changes are already happening somewhere and in some form. This is crucial for policy makers or strategy managers to increase their awareness of options beyond their operational space.. Through the presented comprehensive discussion on approaches to visualisation and alternative futures, a description of the co-creation methodology and a preliminary evaluation for the Water Visions Visualisation Platform, it is possible to make the following conclusions and recommendations.

Conclusions:

• The co-creation process outlined provides a useful framework for further visualisatrion, illustration and communication projects;
• Scenarios were an effective way to organize and synthesis scoping review findings into coherent landscape, ‘zone’ and ‘system’ visuals and narratives;
• Scenarios were an effective way to demonstrate transition between unsustainable practices to more sustainable practices;
• Visualisation of evidence was an effective engagement, communication and learning tool for these coherent scenarios for several audiences;
• An interactive Platform supports the linking of real-world examples to the illustrated contents. This is essential to communicate to more operationally-focused decision-makers who need to see examples;
• Not all concepts and principles are easy to visualize or illustrate in the landscapes (e.g. systems, regenerative, circularity and nexus approaches). Therefore, other means are needed such as narrative, animation and links to other resources;

Recommendations:

• When working collaboratively on co-design and co-creation ensure significant time is allocated to workshopping and conceptual elucidation;
• Ensure that interfaces such as the Platform are built using standard software to enable onward collaboration and updating where possible;
• The Platform should be further tested and co-created with a wider set of audiences;
• The Platform Landscapes L1-L3 should be further populated with new findings and examples that are in the Content Organiser but could not be included during the project duration;
• Explanation of concepts and principles could be developed further through narrative, animation and examples;
• The L4 wireframe should be used for (i) developing short-term acceptable / fundable generic or place-based scenario and programme of work using L3 as a ‘pull’; (ii) developing a place-based long-term ambition scenario; (iii) co-developing a more transformational scenario than L3.

The Platform is structured to evolve and is available to co-develop with various audiences’ requirements, with the benefit of reference to the principles upon which the current proof of concept demonstration version is based. Please contact the authors.