Scenarios explored with Delphi

Given the complexities and unknowns of coastal and marine futures, scenario analysis using a ‘Delphi process’ can help to explore expert views and assemble them into consistent ‘best guesses’ of alternative futures. This chapter presents five scenarios consisting of descriptions of different societal organisation in relation to (i) the importance of market forces (versus other methods of resource allocation) and (ii) the dominant level of environmental government (from local through national to supranational). Experts reviewed how marine ecosystem services in UK regions would alter by 2060 under projected macroeconomic conditions and climate change in these scenarios, and how the services would respond to shocks (pulse disturbances) to the social-ecological system. The results suggest that it is important to sustain present trends in marine environmental management and implementation of European and national policies, whilst adoption of locally managed ‘soft engineering’ of coastlines, augmenting carbon sinks and improving the resilience of coastal ecosystems and communities to sea-level rise require further attention. In addition to these results, the process of reaching them is important: ‘mini-Delphi’ workshops (as illustrated here) can engage a community of experts with a complex set of interacting social-environmental issues.