Sustainable land use scenario framework: Framework and outcomes from peri-urban South-East Queensland, Australia

Scenario planning is a common tool used for dealing with uncertainty in rapidly changing situations. The aim of this paper is to create a practical framework for developing sustainable land use scenarios that has direct policy relevance. The framework was created and tested in a peri-urban area, Rocky Point in South-East Queensland, Australia. The framework, which is driven by participatory processes and consists of an iterative combination of three steps: context assessment, decision structuring and decision analysis. The participatory process involved a range of actors engaged through steering committees, public meetings, focus groups, questionnaires and interviews. The outputs from these activities were four landscape scale scenarios which were sustainably assessed by an impact matrix and equity matrix (relating to a dendrogram of coalition). Critically, these outputs also identified the possible formation of three new social alliances amongst key local actors considered necessary for the manifestation of any of the future scenarios. Application of this framework demonstrated its usefulness to inform policy by outcomes already being included in current policy documents. Additionally, the framework will inform future scenario developers by including: (i) a flexible participatory process able to respond to local contextual needs; (ii) capability to identify ‘triggers for change’ by actors to delineate alternate scenarios; and (iii) development of ‘enabling policies’ as part of the participatory process, to move towards target scenarios.