Appendix 1. Variables explored in all case studies.
Features Variables Description
0. Case details Case study / Title Please give a title to your case study.
Contributed by Name of person(s) who filled out this
survey?
Role of contributor What role did the person(s) who filled out
this survey have in the process?
Reference(s) DOI or URL of any documentation of the
scenarios.
1. Context and Location Country + area/state/region,
case identity village/city/municipality/community.
Scale At which scale were the scenarios created
(e.g., local community, municipality,
watershed, regional)? Did you explicitly
include processes at multiple scales?
Definition of scale How were scales and boundaries of system
and boundaries defined? Who defined them?
Ecological context Please indicate what is the ecoregion
according to Olson, et al. 2001. Terrestrial
Ecoregions of the world: a new map of life
on Earth. Bioscience 51(11):933-938. What
are the main ecosystems present in the
SES? Is it included or are there protected
areas? If so please indicate name and type
of protection.
Governance/ What are the most relevant institutions
Institutional context operating in the SES? (e.g. community
council, community non-paid activities,
guerrilla and/or paramilitaries,
municipality, watershed management
institution, regional government, National
Park, NGOs, European Common
Agricultural Policy,
mining/fishery/timber/meat market,
REDD+/PES schemes, etc.). This might be
extremely complex but we do not seek for
a detailed institutional description of the
SES, therefore please refer to the most
relevant institutions within the future
scenario context in the study area, taking
into account this information is meant to be
useful mostly to discuss which kind of
approaches might be useful in which
institutional contexts.
Socio-economic What are the main livelihoods/economic
context sectors in the SES?
Focus of the scenario Was there a specific focus in the scenario
planning planning? (e.g. Water management,
transhumance, biodiversity conservation,
problems/challenges, etc.). Distinguish
between issue-based, area-based, and
institution-based (van Noten et al. (20013).
Main stakeholders in What are the main stakeholders in the
the SES SES? Please specify from local/internal
(e.g. the commoners, the mayor, the priest,
the president of the shepherds association,
the intermediaries buying the meat/timber,
etc.) to external and/or global scales (e.g.
external logging and mining companies, an
international development cooperation
agency)?
Definition of main How where these stakeholders identified
stakeholders in the and by whom?
SES
Project context Was the scenario planning embedded on a
(Research/Action) wider project or a project on itself? What
were the aims of the wider project? (e.g. to
evaluate the ES provided by the social-
ecological network related to the practice
of transhumance, to identify sustainable
community-based governance models for
the management of natural resources, etc.)
How long did the whole project last?
Resource for scenario To what extent did PSP count on human
planning and financial resources? Extensive (more
than 50.000 euro, more than two people
hired, more than one year) or limited (less
that 50.000 euros, less than two people
hired, less than one year).
Year When were the scenarios created?
2. Objectives General objective What were the overall objectives of the
project/process? Please describe. Identify
as: descriptive and/or normative,
exploratory and/or pre-policy, process
and/or product (van Notten, 2005).
Specific objectives What objectives had the research team in
mind? E.g. scenarios were used to get
people to think about relationships and
possible future they haven't been including
in decisions, to evaluate the robustness of
alternative polices across different futures,
to give policy insights, etc. What objectives
had the stakeholders? Was there any
process to build shared objectives?
Motivation for Why were scenarios chosen to be applied
choosing participatory in this case?
scenario planning
tool?
3. Background How was background information (e.g.
Methodological information sources interviews, data bases, surveys… that
approach support the scenario creation) obtained
(sources and processes)? How was it used?
What was the main reason for obtaining
background information?
Background How did this information support the
information use scenario planning? How was it integrated
into the scenarios? (e.g. the drivers of
change identified in previous interviews
and surveys were used by the research team
to select the 3/4 guidelines of each
scenario, data about impact of climate
change in the area was used as guidelines
for scenarios,...). What motivated this
choices? How long did it take from "data
collection" to final scenario created?
Guidelines or Did the team base the process on previous
examples used by processes or published guidelines? Where
team did they get inspiration from? Please add
references if possible/necessary. What
motivated this choice?
Process for the E.g. Surveys, workshop, data bases,
identification of experts, research team, etc. (non exclusive).
drivers of change What motivated this choice?
Use of the drivers of How were the drivers identified used?
change to create the What motivated this choice?
scenarios
Number of drivers of How many drivers of change were
change identified identified? Were they ranked (e.g.
according to their relevance, to the
probability that they affect the SES, to the
vulnerability of the SES to them, etc.)
Specific drivers of Please specify (direct and indirect). A
change identified direct driver unequivocally influences
ecosystem processes. Important direct
drivers include climate change, pollution,
overexploitation, land conversion leading
to habitat change, overexploitation, and
invasive species and diseases. An indirect
driver operates more diffusely, by altering
one or more direct drivers. Important
indirect drivers are changes in
population/demography, economic
activities, socio-political, scientific and
technological, and cultural and religious
factors (Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment definitions).
Type of scenario E.g. A priori, driven by participants, with a
design modelling component, mixed approaches,
etc. What motivated this choice?
Criteria for E.g. Vulnerability towards the driver,
prioritization of impact of the driver, likelihood of the
drivers of change as driver, uncertainty of the driver, capacity to
guidelines for exert influence on the drive. What
scenarios motivated this choice?
Time span (year What year was the end projection of the
projected) scenarios? What was the timespan of the
scenarios? What motivated this choice?
Number of scenarios How many scenarios where created?
designed Where there scenarios that where not used
in the end? Why? What motivated these
choices?
4. Previous information Yes/ no. How/when was the information
Methodological given to participants given? E.g. potential modelled impacts of
process involved in scenario climate change or depletion of resources in
design the area, influence of the focus practice (in
the case of transhumance for instance) on
the social-ecological system, brief history
of scenario planning and its uses, etc.
Previous relation of What engagement did research team have
researchers with with participants beforehand (e.g.
participants information, scenario co-design, planning
co-design with scenarios as part, etc.)
Duration of the How long did the whole scenario process
process last? How long did the participatory
scenario activity last? How many
workshops were carried out? How many
hours of work of participants? How much
time passed between workshops if several?
Did the same participants come to all the
workshops (continuity)?
Phases/structure of the At what point were stakeholders brought
participatory design of into the process? In which stages of the
scenarios (scenario process were participants involved? E.g.
activity) only envisioning, past+envisioning,
envisioning+back-casting.
Methodological tools E.g. Individual reflections, small group
for each phase during discussions, maps, miniatures, cards,
the scenario creation collages, drawings, mental models,
quantitative models…
Back-casting Yes/no. If yes, how was the back-casting
developed?
Presentation of results Yes/no. If yes, when and how were the
to participants results presented to participants?
Feedback (Validation) Yes/no. Was there a validation of scenarios
outputs by participants? I.e. were scenarios
checked to see if participants/stakeholders
thought they were credible? If so, how was
it carried out? Who did it? Was this taken
into consideration (e.g. scenarios updated)?
Storyline type Qualitative/quantitative/mixed? How were
the narratives built?
Storyline spatially Yes/no. If yes, how was this done?
explicit
Storyline with Yes/no. If yes, what was the timing?
intermediate time-
frames
Conflicts emerged Were there any conflicts during the
participatory process? Did conflicts emerge
within/between
commissioners/researches/participants/etc.?
Was the process designed to address
conflicts? Did the participatory process
help handling the conflicts? How were they
handled? Were these conflicts recognised
for the first time, or were there any
previously acknowledged conflicts? Did
these conflicts affect the outcomes?
Process of How were participants selected (any
participant's selection specific method)? Who decided whom to
invite? How were participants invited
(email, telephone, letter, personal contact,
news advertisement)? Did participants
receive any compensation/reward for their
participation? If so, what was it? Was there
a limit to the number of participants?
Number of How many participants were invited? How
participants many participated? Min/Max group size.
Types of participants Who was (not) invited to participate?
Governance level of participants (e.g.
primary/secondary stakeholders, resource
users or managers). Was any key
stakeholder missing from the process? If
so, why?
Number of facilitators Number of facilitators and ratio of
facilitators/participants.
Type of facilitators Were they the researchers or professionals?
If the researchers acted as facilitators, were
they trained? Did they have previous
experience in scenario planning?
Post-workshop data How was the data obtained from the
analysis scenario exercise analysed? What role did
the research team play? What role did the
participants play? E.g. summaries of
storylines (when necessary, for example for
a paper), analysis of semi-qualitative
information such as trends of ES in the
scenarios analysed (e.g. represented in
graph), weighted ranking of
measures/actions suggested in the back-
casting according to the quantitative
priority participants have given them, etc.
Uncertainty Was uncertainty explicitly addressed
during the process? If so, how?
Vulnerability Was vulnerability explicitly addressed
during the process? If so, how? E.g. In the
evaluation of the scenarios, we addressed
the trend followed by ES the trend in
different dimensions of human well-being,
the food security of the SES and the
vulnerability of the SES in each scenario.
Desirability Was desirability explicitly addressed
during the process? If so, how? (E.g. was
there a completely desired scenario,
without guidelines?)
5. Content of Guidelines given If you gave a few guidelines of each
scenarios scenario from which the participants had to
develop the rest of it, what were the
guidelines of each of the scenarios? Or, if
you were inspired ("hardly or softly") by
previous general/high-level scenarios,
please also refer to them.
Scenario names Names of each scenario. If there were
names given by the research team and
names given by participants, please
mention both making the difference. How
were the names chosen?
Characteristics of Briefly summarize each scenario (50 words
storylines per scenario).
Ecosystem Services Were ES explicitly discussed or was the ES
framework somehow used? Yes/no. If so,
how?
Biodiversity Was biodiversity explicitly addressed?
Yes/no. If so how (E.g. conservation,
challenges…)?
Human well-being Was human well-being explicitly
addressed? If so, how?
Trade-offs and Did the process explicitly explore trade-
synergies offs and synergies with participants? Of
what (e.g. between action/policy insights,
ecosystem services, human well-being
dimensions)?
6. Outputs Collages Yes/no. How? If yes, why (motivation to
do it)? Who did them? Did participants
collaborate in the production? If so, how?
Who was the target: a) the
community/stakeholders involved in
process; b) external stakeholders relevant
to the system e.g. policy; c) scientific
audiences?
Drawings Yes/no. If yes, how? Why (motivation to
do it)? Who?
Leaflets/postcards Yes/no. If yes, how? Why (motivation to
do it)? Who did them? Did participants
collaborate in the production? If so, how?
Who was the target: a) the
community/stakeholders involved in
process? b) external stakeholders relevant
to the system e.g. policy? c) scientific
audiences?
Posters Yes/no. If yes, how? Why (motivation to
do it)? Who did them? Did participants
collaborate in the production? If so, how?
Who was the target: a) the
community/stakeholders involved in
process? b) external stakeholders relevant
to the system e.g. policy? c) scientific
audiences?
Scientific publications Yes/no. If yes, how? Why (motivation to
do it)? Who did them? Did participants
collaborate in the production? If so, how?
Who was the target: a) the
community/stakeholders involved in
process? b) external stakeholders relevant
to the system e.g. policy? c) scientific
audiences?
Reports Yes/no. If yes, how? Why (motivation to
do it)? Who did them? Did participants
collaborate in the production? If so, how?
Who was the target: a) the
community/stakeholders involved in
process? b) external stakeholders relevant
to the system e.g. policy? c) scientific
audiences?
Illustrations Yes/no. If yes, how? Why (motivation to
do it)? Who did them? Did participants
collaborate in the production? If so, how?
Who was the target: a) the
community/stakeholders involved in
process? b) external stakeholders relevant
to the system e.g. policy? c) scientific
audiences?
Videos Yes/no. If yes, how? Why (motivation to
do it)? Who did them? Did participants
collaborate in the production? If so, how?
Who was the target: a) the
community/stakeholders involved in
process? b) external stakeholders relevant
to the system e.g. policy? c) scientific
audiences?
7. Outcomes Monitoring of Yes/No. If yes, how was/is/will be the
evolution/impacts monitoring developed? What are/were/will
be the metrics of success? Who does/has
done/will do the monitoring?
Short-term impacts on What are/have been the impacts on the
local and wider scales local/wider scales in the short term? How
were the scenarios used by participants?
Has there been any implementation of the
scenario results (and therefore an impact in
decision-making)? Has there been a
process of learning by stakeholders (e.g.
making them more oriented to long-term
thinking or willing to integrate uncertainty
in future thinking/planning)?
Long-term impacts on What are/have been the impacts on the
local and wider scales local/wider scales in the long term? How
were the scenarios used by participants?
Has there been any implementation of the
scenario results (and therefore an impact in
decision-making)? Has there been a
process of learning by stakeholders (e.g.
making them more oriented to long-term
thinking or willing to integrate uncertainty
in future thinking/planning)?
Evaluation Was there any evaluation of the
approach/process of scenario planning?
What were the criteria/questions used to
evaluate? How was the evaluation done
(methods used)? Who did the evaluation
(only internal within researcher or with
participants)?
8. Lessons Weaknesses/ Please mention at least five weaknesses of
learnt Limitations your approach and process.
Strengths/Potentials Please mention at least five strengths of
your approach and process. E.g. Did the
scenarios act as an effective boundary
object? Did they lower knowledge
asymmetry? Did they build community
cohesion?
General reflections on Free text field that might flag up some
what scenarios added fruitful ideas for the discussion. E.g. Has
to this process/project the project enabled system thinking? Did it
help build consensus? Changes on
collective thinking on the governance
system?
Key insights Please think of any insightful comments
that might contribute to improve future
PSP practice.
Other comments E.g. Did the scenarios act as an effective
boundary object? Did they lower
knowledge asymmetry? Did they build
community cohesion? Was there a
tendency for scenarios to gravitate to
extremes/simplifications, perhaps due to
cognitive biases?