Theme 3 – Integrating science, technology, policy and practice Participatory socio-economic scenario development for land use change: a methodological approach Rike Stottena, Markus Schermera, Ulrich Strasser b, Gertraud Meißl b, Thomas Marke b, Kri- stian Försterc, Herbert Formayerd aUniversity of Innsbruck, Department of Sociology, Mountain Agriculture Research Unit,
[email protected] bUniversity of Innsbruck, Department of Geography, Innsbruck, Austria c Leibniz University of Hannover, Institute of Hydrology and Water Resources Management, Hannover, Germany, formerly b d Institute of Meteorology, University of Natural Resources and Life Science, Vienna, Austria Abstract: For the elaboration of adaption strategies to long-term developments, socio-economic changes need to be included. Participatory scenario methods are a creative and flexible approach to consider uncertainties and serve as a transdisciplinary tool for mutual learning. Therefore, socio- economic scenarios provide comprehensive descriptions of future trends enriching climate scenarios. This paper illustrates an applied approach of participatory bottom up generated socio-economic sce- narios, which serve in combination with climate scenarios as a base for hydrological modelling. The applied approach resulted in a useful method to include local tacit knowledge and further to activate the dialogue between scientists, practitioners and policy makers. Therefore, we conclude that a par- ticipatory scenario development approach is a mean for transdisciplinary research.