Expanding the boundaries of climate resilient futures: Participatory cross-impact balances in the Red River Basin

The long-term resilience of river basins around the world – conceptualized as coupled social-ecological systems – is influenced by uncertain drivers of change, including climate change. As actors attempt to make river basins more “resilient”, questions remain about what aspects of these systems are being made more resilient, which conditions they are becoming resilient to, and who the resilience is for. Addressing such questions require more exploratory and reflexive means for anticipating and imagining the future than are currently mainstream in the water sector. In this scenario modelling study, I partnered with the Red River Basin Commission and the International Institute for Sustainable Development to develop a participatory cross-impact balances (CIB) model that characterizes how critical social and ecological uncertainties in the Red River Basin (RRB) influence efforts to build resilience to climate change, and vice versa (to 2050). The RRB is a transboundary basin shared by Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota (United States), and Manitoba (Canada). Qualitative analysis of 45 virtual interviews conducted over two rounds with interviewees representing perspectives from diverse geographies (US and Canada), levels of governance (transboundary, federal, state/provincial, municipal, watershed, and Indigenous) and areas of expertise (agriculture, climate, ecology, governance, water management, Indigenous knowledge and governance) generated 15 interacting critical uncertainties, each with multiple possible end-states. These uncertainties ranged from climate change and water quality to Indigenous water rights and agricultural markets. Interactions between uncertainties were discussed with interviewees and influence judgments were coded by the analyst. A sensitivity analysis of the influence judgments in the model to both scientific uncertainty and ambiguity (i.e., multiple frames) revealed divergent assumptions about the system and what constitutes desirable resilient future. Analysis of these results revealed dozens of internally consistent scenarios and 8 scenarios that were robust to divergent model assumptions. After briefly presenting the study results, I will share reflections on the non-standard methodological aspects of my scenario analysis. Namely, I will discuss 1) the opportunities and constraints associated with participatory aspects of the study and 2) the utility of a rigorous sensitivity analysis that helped build legitimacy with study partners and generated useful results in a scenario context rife with uncertainty and ambiguity.