Climate change and its complex, heterogenous and long-term impacts challenge the traditional spatially and temporally restricted instruments of spatial planning. This paper suggests a methodological framework for backcasting to support spatial adaptation to predicted climate changes. Starting from a vision of the future, backcasting infers information about the constituents of a system using knowledge about the behavior of the system and its structure. In popular terms, backcasting plans from a single future vision of a desirable outcome, followed by the question what shall we do today I get to the desired future situation?, thus freeing constraints caused by the current situation and Opening the mind for future options. It provides a broad and flexible enough platform for a set of strategies to address future uncertainties and insure the realization of the vision. Strategic backcasting involves various stakeholders in the discussion of alternative visions and in the development and implementation of flexible measures; and is thus useful for coordinating spatial planning instruments. For addressing quantitative spatial problems, inverse modeling has shown to be a valuable expansion of strategic backcasting. Yet, for a successful implementation of such approaches, current planning systems have to evolve: (I) participation, bottom-up processes and informal instruments need to be further developed, (2) a regional perspective and responsibility has to be taken by planners, and (3) sectoral measures should be combined strongly and implemented integratively in system-oriented strategies to secure the multifunctionality of landscapes and reduce the vulnerability of our environment to climate changes.
Grêt-Regamey, A; Brunner, SH
Adaptation to climate change through backcasting - a methodological framework for spatial planners
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