Modeling Sustainability Scenarios in the Baltimore–Washington (DC) Region

An Overview of Scenario Approaches: A Guide for Urban Design and Planning

“…However, their institutional exercise focused on formal analysis, and failed to consider the contradictory interests and values that typically emerge during participatory workshops. Following an exploratory scenario analysis exercise for the Baltimore-Washington region, Knaap et al (2020) emphasized the dearth of contingency planning exercises given the difficulty of identifying robust and contingent policies with increasing decision-making complexity. Indeed, many scenario planning efforts do not result in plans but rather only in insights and recommendations.…”

“…Inspired by approaches developed in the corporate domain, XSP has recently garnered attention in urban design and planning literature (Avin and Goodspeed 2020; Knaap et al 2020; Stapleton 2020). The approach encourages collaboration, enables participants to ask what-if questions and tests impacts and trade-offs between alternatives, through indicators.…”

“…The baseline data are used to customize the scenario analysis tools and calibrate models. For example, the Baltimore-Washington region's project used the Prospects for Regional Sustainability Tomorrow modeling suite to create a baseline scenario by projecting the impacts of current plans, policies, and driving forces (Knaap et al 2020). Alternative scenarios are typically compared against the reference scenario and baseline assumptions to understand tradeoffs and impacts of change, identify actions needed, circumvent imminent challenges or adapt to uncertainties (Ange et al 2017; ODOT 2017).…”

“…Contingency planning, also known as anticipatory governance (Quay 2010) or exploratory scenario analysis (Knaap et al 2020), is widely used in the climate, defense and corporate sectors, as it effectively accounts for high uncertainty and long timeframes. As a tool of scenario planning, anticipatory governance seeks to create and rigorously analyze numerous possible scenarios, their causes, and implications, using a set of indicators, and respectively craft contingent and robust plans (Quay 2010).…”

Speaking to the Future

“…In 2019, Norton et al explained how to incorporate simple climate change scenarios into local planning practice using participatory methods. In the last issue of JAPA, Knaap et al (2020) assessed an exploratory scenario planning exercise focused on land use and transport in the Baltimore (MD)-Washington (DC) region. In exploratory scenarios, different plausible futures provide a framework for assessing options.…”