FORESCENE

Development of a Forecasting Framework and Scenarios to Support the EU Sustainable Development Strategy

FORESCENE is a STREP within the EU FP-6, PRIORITY 8.1 “Policy-oriented research, Scientific support to policies, Integrating and Strengthening the European Research Area”

Possibilities for modelling sustainability scenarios.
Technical Report of Work Package 3, 2008 (pdf file) »

Presentation of FORESCENE (slides as pdf file) »

The challenge addressed by this project is to develop a framework for creating sustainability scenarios, which integrate different environmental topics such as water, soil, resource use etc. In the general context of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy and to comply with the specific needs
of Impact Assessments the European Commission and DG Environment in particular need a robust and scientifically sound forecasting framework to develop harmonised middle and long-term (2015-2030) baseline and alternative policy scenarios.

FORESCENE will develop an analytical framework for consistent environmental sustainability scenario building (forecasting, backcasting, simulation) in areas such as water, soil, biodiversity, waste and natural resources. Problem issues and priority policy fields such as agriculture, infrastructures/land use, industry/economy will be selected in close contact with the EU Commission. The project will focus on backcasting, to identify different scenarios leading to the achievement of future targets.

FORESCENE will

1. describe the chosen environmental problems, review policy objectives and indicators, and determine the cross-cutting driving forces;
2. develop core elements of integrated sustainability scenarios (goal definition);
3. determine measures and processes to be considered for change (pre-backcasting);
4. address quantitative and qualitative parameters for measurement (parameterization);
5. develop a Business-As-Usual (BAU) scenario framework and example projections (forecasting);
6. develop alternative scenarios (incl. backcasting);
7. check the options for modelling, and
8. work out conclusions.

To integrate the eight steps FORESCENE will organize a series of workshops to involve DGs and stakeholders, to integrate knowledge on (a) cross-cutting drivers of various environmental problems and priority policy fields, and (b) to define essentials for integrated sustainability scenarios in terms of goals and cross-cutting policy measures. Further experts will be involved at various stages of the project. The project will result in recommendations for future policy development with regard to the EU´s sustainability strategy and the framework for Impact Assessments and concrete proposals for the use and extension of existing simulation models.

The total budget for FORESCENE for 2006-08 is 791 k€ of which LUCSUS is 215k€.

Partners

• Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy
  www.wupperinst.org
   
• Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS)
  www.lucsus.lu.se
   
• Centre for Environmental Management University of Nottingham
  www.nottingham.ac.uk/geography
   
• Regional Environmental Center for CEE (REC)
  www.rec.org
   
• Sustainable Europe Research Institute (SERI), Vienna
  www.seri.at
   
• Agricultural and Land Economics Department (DEART),
  Universita Firenze
  www.deart.unifi.it

Coordinator

Project leader:
Dr. Stefan Bringezu
Stefan.Bringezuwupperinst.org
Wuppertal Institute for
Climate, Environment and Energy.

 

More info at www.forescene.net

FORESCENE leaflet »