The theme at the Havs- och vattenforum 2019 was “adaptation to climate change.” The forum, held yearly, aims to increase knowledge about HaV’s business area, exchange ideas about current issues and find opportunities to plan for changes and solutions. This year’s forum addresses a wide range of issues including hydropower, eutrophication and water quality.
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Drought, torrential rain and climate change
Sweden is faced with new challenges of climate-driven water scarcity and increasing variability – challenges that we are not well prepared for. Against this backdrop Karl Hallding from SEI and the Mistra Geopolitics programme led two workshops to discuss how scenario methodologies could be used to gain better understanding on the new societal challenges associated with climate-driven water stress. The workshops addressed how different types of scenario methodology can create better preparedness for climate-related challenges with a focus on water issues and strategy development.The workshops focused on the exploratory scenario methodologies that have been developed within the Mistra Geopolitics programme – Stockholm Geopolitics Scenarios – where HaV has been involved among other stakeholder partners. In addition, experiences from scenario based strategic processes in the Swedish steel, mining, forestry and real estate sectors were presented to illustrate the power of explorative scenarios as support for strategic decision making.
The workshops were aimed at increasing the understanding of how scenario-based processes can contribute to robustness solutions to complex problems, such as water-related climate challenges. Examples from around the world where scenario processes have been used successfully to discuss common water related challenges and arrive at a shared understanding about future options and strategies. were also addressed.
.Workshop participants were positive about the use of explorative scenarios to gain a better understanding, as well as to prepare for the new climate-driven water challenges that Sweden is facing. However, the importance to combine qualitative and quantitative approaches were stressed by several of the participants.
Read more about the Stockholm Geopolitics Scenarios in this brief, and in the 2018 annual report.
.Written by: Karl Hallding
