Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Harmonizing the Development of Local Socioeconomic Scenarios: A Participatory Downscaling Approach Applied in Five European Case Studies

Athanasios Thomas Vafeidis
ORCID logo ,
Lena Reimann
* ORCID logo ,
Gerald Jan Ellen
,
Gunnel Goransson
,
Gerben Koers
,
Lisa Van Well
,
Bente Vollstedt
,
Maureen Tsakiris
,
Amy Oen
Version 1 : Received: 29 November 2023 / Approved: 30 November 2023 / Online: 30 November 2023 (04:33:28 CET)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Vafeidis, A.T.; Reimann, L.; Ellen, G.J.; Goransson, G.; Koers, G.; Van Well, L.; Vollstedt, B.; Tsakiris, M.; Oen, A. Harmonizing the Development of Local Socioeconomic Scenarios: A Participatory Downscaling Approach Applied in Four European Case Studies. Sustainability 2024, 16, 2578. Vafeidis, A.T.; Reimann, L.; Ellen, G.J.; Goransson, G.; Koers, G.; Van Well, L.; Vollstedt, B.; Tsakiris, M.; Oen, A. Harmonizing the Development of Local Socioeconomic Scenarios: A Participatory Downscaling Approach Applied in Four European Case Studies. Sustainability 2024, 16, 2578.

Abstract

Scenario analysis is a widely employed method for addressing uncertainties when assessing the physical and socio-economic impacts if climate change. Global scenarios have been extensively used in this context. However, these scenarios are in most cases not suitable for supporting local analyses. On the other hand, locally developed scenarios may lack the global context, thus having limited comparability with or transferability to other locations. The Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, which have been primarily developed for climate impact research, provide the possibility to extend the existing global narratives and adapt them to local characteristics in order to develop locally relevant scenarios. Here, we propose a methodological framework for producing harmonized scenarios across different case studies. This framework was developed in the EVOKED project and combines elements of top-down and bottom-up approaches to develop local scenarios for five regions in northern Europe. We employ the SSP as boundary conditions and, in cooperation with stakeholders from these five regions, develop local scenarios for a range of SSP. The developed sets of scenarios are consistently informed by global developments and are therefore comparable with other downscaled scenarios developed in different regions. At the same time, they have been based on local participatory processes, thus being locally credible and relevant to the needs of stakeholders. The local scenarios constitute a climate service per se as they can raise stakeholder awareness of the processes that will drive risk, exposure, and adaptive capacity in the future and inform discussions on mitigation strategies and adaptation pathways.

Keywords

Shared socioeconomic pathways; scenarios; climate change participatory approaches; co-production; stakeholders

Subject

Environmental and Earth Sciences, Geography

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Download PDF

Comments (0)

We encourage comments and feedback from a broad range of readers. See criteria for comments and our Diversity statement.

Leave a public comment
Send a private comment to the author(s)
* All users must log in before leaving a comment
Views 0
Downloads 0
Comments 0
Metrics 0
Get PDF Cite Share 0
Bookmark BibSonomy Mendeley Reddit Delicious
×
Alerts
Notify me about updates to this article or when a peer-reviewed version is published.
We use cookies on our website to ensure you get the best experience.
Read more about our cookies here.