CSIRO PUBLISHING

www.publish.csiro.au/journals/ajar Australian Journal of Agricultural Research, 2005, 56, 563–580

The Avon River Basin in 2050: scenario planningin the Western Australian Wheatbelt

Michael H. O’ConnorA,E, Mike McFarlaneB, James FisherC, Donald MacRaeD,and Ted LefroyA

ACSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Private Bag 5, Floreat, WA 6014, Australia.B‘Dangemanning’, Doodlakine, WA 6411, Australia.

CDepartment of Agriculture, PO Box 483, Northam, WA 6401, Australia.DAPT Business Services Pty. Ltd, GPO Box 3130, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.

ECorresponding author. Email: Michael.O’Connor@csiro.au

Abstract. Scenario planning was used to identify issues and drivers of change that are relevant to communityefforts to improve regional prospects in the Western Australian Wheatbelt. The region, some 20 million hectaresin area, is under pressure to respond to a variety of environmental (salinity, erosion, acidification, biodiversitydecline), economic (declining agricultural terms of trade), and social forces (rural decline, isolation). Regionalstrategic plans have been increasingly seen as the means of achieving sustainability in the face of these challenges,but until recently typically had single-activity outlook and timeframes of up to a decade into the future. Systematicfutures-based research has been used in various regions to avoid reliance on business-as-usual as the default strategy,and to identify opportunities and challenges not presently apparent. The Avon River Basin, the central region of theWheatbelt, was selected as the geographic focus of the project, and the time horizon was set at 2050. The project wasdeveloped by a group of 50 stakeholders from the basin, with expertise and strategic interests across a wide rangeof economic, social, and environmental themes. Through a series of workshops the stakeholders identified criticalissues and their attendant drivers, then documented relevant past trends. Four regional scenarios, Saline Growth,Grain and Drain, Landcare Bounty, and Harmony with Prosperity, were developed based on positive and negativecombinations of 2 clusters of uncertain and important drivers: environmental change and access to new markets.Common opportunities, threats, and critical success factors for the Avon River Basin region out to 2050 were alsoidentified. We also found that the stakeholders have a tendency to strive for positive outcomes despite negative initialconditions. This resulted in 4 scenarios that were superficially similar due to the regional scale of analysis and thecontinuation of agricultural industries as significant shapers of economy, society, and environment. However, eachscenario represents profoundly different outcomes for the residents and communities of the Avon River Basin in2050. The triple-bottom line outcomes for the Avon River Basin in 2050 were estimated to be in the range 4.9–9.7 Mtof wheat (currently 4.0), 46 000–66 000 people (currently 43 000), and 10–30% of farmland salinised (currently 6).The application of these results to other regions in Australia is discussed.

Additional keywords: Water for a Healthy Country flagship, grainbelt, community planning.

IntroductionThe Western Australian Wheatbelt, a region of some20 million hectares, is under immense pressure to respondto a variety of environmental (salinity, erosion, acidification,biodiversity decline), economic (declining agricultural termsof trade), and social forces (rural decline, isolation), many ofwhich have emerged over the past 50 years. Regional strategicplans addressing economic, social, and environmental issuesare being developed by local and state governments,regional natural resource management groups, and individualindustries (Weigall 1996; Avon Catchment Council 2004;

Grains Research and Development Corporation 2004).Systematic futures-based research has been used in variousregions to avoid reliance on business-as-usual as the defaultstrategy, and to identify opportunities and challenges notpresently apparent. There are several important by-productsthat can be beneficial to a region in the medium to long-term,including encouragement for stakeholders to think laterallyand ‘outside the box’, and the provision of a vehicle forstrategic dialogue between stakeholders that typically havea single economic, social, or environmental mandate. Weused scenario planning to investigate how community efforts

© CSIRO 2005 10.1071/AR04195 0004-9409/05/060563

564 Australian Journal of Agricultural Research M. H. O’Connor et al.

could improve regional prospects in the Western AustralianWheatbelt in the future.

The Avon River Basin 2050 (ARB2050) project aimed to:

develop an understanding of the critical issuesand attendant drivers of change that maybe relevant to community efforts to improvethe regional prospects for present and futuregenerations of the Avon River Basin betweennow and 2050.

Improving regional prospects was defined as any regionalconfiguration that improves the triple-bottom line — theassessment of new development according to combinedeconomic, social, and environmental benefits — although itmay not necessarily represent optimal/maximal settings ofany one of the benefits independently. Regional prospectsmight be advanced by a combination of improved income,investment, rearrangement of assets to improve benefits,efficiencies and outputs, increased participation in or controlof decision-making processes that effect the region, andexpanded capacity to be more resilient to changes anddecisions over which there is little control within that region.Prospects can also be improved through appreciation of thelinks with other regions, nations, and the global economy anddevelopment of a regional identity through branding.

A set of plausible futures for the Avon River Basin(ARB), part of the Western Australian Wheatbelt, wasdeveloped using scenario planning, a structured approach bywhich companies, regions, and nations can learn about theuncertainty in the key driving forces that influence their goals,plans, policies, and strategies (Schwartz 1996; de Jouvenel2000; Schwartz et al. 2000).

Stakeholders identified key drivers and elements thatmust be common to all future robust strategies for theregions, identified opportunities and challenges not apparentfrom current trends, and contributed to the developmentof a ‘future-aware’ culture in the region. A method forapplying scenarios to strategic planning was introduced to thestakeholders, and possible future applications of the projectresults were outlined.

Location

The Avon River Basin in the central Wheatbelt of WesternAustralia, an area twice the size of Tasmania that producesnearly 20% of Australia’s wheat crop, was selected as thegeographic focus of the project (Figs 1, 2). A river basinwas selected as the boundary because of the importance ofwater and salinity management to the region’s future. Keyhistorical environmental, economic, and social trends, andcurrent status are summarised below.

Environment

The Basin comprises 3 surface water catchments, the Avon,Yilgarn and Lockhart, and is ∼120 000 km2 in area. From

Avon River Basin

Australian grainbelt

Fig. 1. The location of the Avon River Basin within the broadacregrainbelt of Australia (shaded). The shaded area includes cropping andnon-cropping land. The figure incorporates spatial data kindly providedby the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

Fig. 2. The location of the Avon River Basin within south-westernAustralia. The Basin is drained by the Avon River, which is renamedthe Swan River (line with arrowhead) as it flows through the capital cityPerth and into the Indian Ocean. The region includes a substantial partof the Wheatbelt of Western Australia.

west to east, rainfall decreases from 750 to 200 mm peryear. Through the upper part of the Basin, which remainsextensively vegetated, chains of salt lakes connect up inextremely wet years (Viney and Sivapalan 2001). Since1900, some 80 000 km2 of native vegetation have been

Scenario planning in the Western Australian Wheatbelt Australian Journal of Agricultural Research 565

cleared for agriculture in the lower reaches around theAvon Valley out to the Rabbit Proof Fence where rainfall is∼250–300 mm per annum (Avon Catchment Council 2004).Long sections of the lower Avon were retrained in the 1950s(Water and Rivers Commission and Avon River ManagementAuthority 1999). Secondary salinity was first noticed ∼1897,but remediation was limited until the early 1980s. Today,6% of agricultural land is affected by salinity, predictedto grow to 30% by 2050, and two-thirds require sometreatment for soil acidity (Avon Catchment Council 2004).The lower Avon exports 360 GL of salty water into theSwan River annually (Viney and Sivapalan 2001), influencingthe salinity of Perth’s estuary. State governments began toactively promote soil and water conservation in the 1950sat the height of agricultural land clearing in the Basin, andLandcare groups were first established in the region by themid-1980s. Since 2000, the Avon Catchment Council hashad the task of coordinating landscape management in theBasin (Avon Catchment Council 2004). The south-west ofWestern Australia, including the Basin, has been identified asone of 25 global biodiversity hotspots due to its high degree ofendemism undergoing exceptional threat (Myers et al. 2000).An estimated 400 plant species are at risk of extinction dueto salinity spread (Keighery et al. 2001).

Economy

Agricultural production in the Basin was valued at$1.4 billion in 2000, of which over 70% was exported(Wheatbelt Development Commission 2001). Production isdominated by rain-fed crops, predominantly wheat (76%of tonnage), barley (13%), lupins (7%), oats and canola,together with wool and meat production from sheepand cattle. Between 1950 and 2000 the average wheatyield rose from 0.9 t/ha to 1.8 t/ha. In seasons of above-average yield the Avon River Basin may deliver nearly20% of Australia’s wheat crop. Large-scale land clearingfor agriculture continued until the early 1980s. Value-adding and diversification is increasing in the form oftree crops (e.g. oil mallees for biomass harvest, oliveoil, and sandalwood), aquaculture, and flour milling (TheWest Australian 2003). Non-agricultural sectors includeeco- and indigenous-tourism, air sports and air training,and mining of gold, nickel, and iron ore. Mean annualeconomic growth between 1996 and 2001 is estimated to havebeen 4.4% (Australia URS 2003). Distribution infrastructurenetworks for television, telephone, electricity, and watersupply have all received major extensions since the 1950s.

Society

There are 43 local governments and some 150 communitiesacross the Basin. Many social indicators have declined since1950, such as population and average age, driven by farmamalgamation and drift to coastal cities (Avon CatchmentCouncil 2004). Immigrant camps in places such as Northam

and Cunderdin played a part in facilitating populationincreases during the 1950s. Over the past 2 decades,population has decreased by 8% to about 43 000. In the sameperiod the proportion aged 45 or older rose from 21% to 36%of the population. Some 40% of the population reside in only4 towns: Northam, York, Toodyay, and Merredin. The first 3of these lie within the western fringe of the Basin, whichforms a large part of what has become known as the Avon Arc,the rural shires adjoining the northern and eastern boundariesof the capital city Perth (Fig. 3). A recent State Governmentstudy predicts a rise in the population of the Basin by 2031 asPerth’s population overflows into the Avon Arc encouragedby better connections to Perth through expanding commutertrain services (Government of Western Australia 2002). Theother formal aggregation of shires that overlaps the Basin isthe North East Wheatbelt Regional Organisation of Councils(NEWROC) (Fig. 3). The Basin covers the traditional countryof the Ballardong, Galimaia, and Nyaginyagi groups (Tindale1974). Aboriginal people, not counted in the Census until themid-1960s, are today a growing proportion of the Basin’spopulation, having risen to nearly 5% in 2001 from 4% in1991 (Australian Bureau of Statistics 1996, 2001).

MethodProject establishment

The Avon River Basin 2050 project was initiated in the first roundof the CSIRO Water for a Healthy Country flagship projects in

Fig. 3. The two shaded areas are subregional zones — the Avon Arcand North East Wheatbelt Regional Organisation of Councils(NEWROC) — that significantly overlap the Avon River Basin. Theyare significant elements of recent trends and the Avon River Basin 2050scenarios.

566 Australian Journal of Agricultural Research M. H. O’Connor et al.

December 2002. A working group was formed with staff from CSIRO,the Avon Catchment Council, the Wheatbelt Development Commission,the Department of Agriculture Western Australia, and the communitythrough the convenor, Mike McFarlane, a landholder at Doodlakine inthe central Avon River Basin. Dr Don MacRae of APT Business ServicesPty Ltd facilitated the scenario planning process.

Focal question and stakeholders

The Avon River Basin 2050 project was guided by the followingquestion:

what critical issues and attendant drivers of change arerelevant to community efforts to improve the regionalprospects for present and future generations of theAvon River Basin to 2050?

This question guided 50 stakeholders, strategic thinkers, andinvestors invited from across the region to represent economic, social,and environmental interests. Organisations represented included theAvon Catchment Council, Australian Association of AgriculturalConsultants, Australian Wheat Board, Bird-Cameron, Conservation andLand Management, CSIRO, Country Womens Association, departmentsof the Government of Western Australian (Agriculture, Conservationand Land Management, Environment, Health, Local Government andRegional Development, and Planning and Infrastructure), Elders RuralBank, Grain Pool WA, Heartland Regional Branding Group, HeartlandRegional Tourism Association, Indigenous Land Corporation, MerredinSenior High School, Member of the Legislative Assembly for Merredin,TAFE Western Australia (Challenger and C.Y. O’Connor campuses),Telstra Countrywide, Western Australian Farmers Federation, WaterCorporation, Western Power, Western Australian Local GovernmentAssociation, WDC Transport Advisory Group, Wheatbelt AreaConsultative Committee, and the Wheatbelt Development Commission.The project time was from the present, taken to be 2000 for roundingpurposes, until 2050.

The project was conducted as a series of 3 workshops, each dealingwith a different stage in the scenario planning process (Table 1). Eachworkshop aimed to generate particular outputs that could be provided asinput to subsequent workshops. The Critical Issues Workshop developedthe foundation and context, the Scenarios Creation Workshop led to thecreation of 4 scenarios, and the Strategies Response Workshop generateda set of strategic elements that will be relevant to a wide range ofAvon River Basin futures.

Foundation and context

The framework for scenario development was created through2 analytical tasks. The foundation for the scenarios is a detailed analysisof the geography and past and present attributes of the region. Scenariocontext is provided by (a) assumptions about the future, in order tolimit the final number of scenarios by eliminating plausible futures notrelevant to the focal question, (b) drivers and issues that are aspects ofthe regional prospects that are likely to be relevant in the future, and(c) two drivers subsets: shared drivers (common to all scenarios), andcritical drivers (uncertainties that characterise each scenario).

Table 1. ARB2050 Workshop series detailsAll workshops were held in the Muresk Hall, Curtin University of

Technology, near Northam, WA. A total of 53 people attended,representing 36 different organisations

Workshop Title Duration Date Attendees

Critical issues Half day 17 October 2003 38Scenarios creation One day 20 February 2004 37Strategies response One day 26 March 2004 30

The analyses that provided the foundation for the scenarios —characterisation of the region, historical trends, and currentstate — were initially developed by the working group and thenexpanded in consultation with the stakeholders. Prior to the CriticalIssues Workshop the Working Group identified an initial set of12 regional drivers and documented trends in associated critical issuesbetween 1950 and the present, taken to be the year 2000. At theworkshop, stakeholders considered a list of additional issues thatcould affect regional prospects. The new and existing issues wereassigned to one or more ‘future impact’ themes that we termed drivers(e.g. land, water, plant industries, and marketing the Avon River Basin),and expanded by the addition of details about past trends and futureprospects. Historical trends were investigated at whole-of-region scale,and expressed as maps, graphs, and tables wherever possible. Thesedata and analyses provided with a snapshot of the region that servedas the common starting point for all 4 scenarios. In addition, thesnapshot identified and enhanced understanding of the relationshipbetween each stakeholder’s strategic interests and the geography of theAvon River Basin.

Environmental data were readily extractable for the Avon RiverBasin; however, the collection units for social and economic datawere typically Local Government Areas (hereafter ‘shire’, althoughtechnically, one of the local governments in the Basin is a town)that have varying degrees of overlap with the Basin. A method wasdeveloped to collect and resample shire statistical data to fit the ARBboundary using a Geographical Information System and a relationaldatabase (O’Connor et al. 2004). Relevant historical statistics forthe 43 shires that overlap the Avon River Basin were extracted in5-year time steps starting at 1951. Sources included the StatisticalRegister publications of Western Australia, the WA Year Book series,Australian Bureau of Statistics publications, local histories, reports,and agricultural production data compiled by the Department ofAgriculture, Western Australia. Additional historical trends wereresearched in response to new drivers contributed by stakeholdersin the Critical Issues Workshop. Subsequent additions and deletionswere aimed at building a more comprehensive and relevant dataresource for use in building and understanding the ARB2050 scenarios,and in future scenario building and strategic planning activities (seeO’Connor et al. 2004).

Before the Scenarios Creation Workshop, an overseer for eachscenario driver revised its issues list and then ranked them inorder of importance. Stakeholders were then asked to score at leasttwo of the scenario drivers for their importance and uncertainty,as follows:

Importance → how signif icant is the likely impact(positive or negative) of the ScenarioDriver on the region

1, least important up to 10, most important

Uncertainty → how well understood is the impact ofthe Scenario Driver on the region?

1, least uncertainty up to 10, most uncertainty

A further requirement of stakeholders was to ensure that theyassigned at least one 10 and one 1 for importance regardless of howmany more drivers were given importance scores. Any number from1 to 10 could be assigned to the remaining drivers. This scoring style wasthen repeated for uncertainty. Most stakeholders ranked all 22 drivers inthis way. The average importance and uncertainty scores for each driverwere calculated and plotted.

Scenario planning in the Western Australian Wheatbelt Australian Journal of Agricultural Research 567

Scenario development

Prior to and during the Scenarios Creation Workshop, the stakeholdersanalysed the uncertainty–importance graph to identify 2 clusters of themost uncertain drivers. The uncertainty was interpreted as a futurepossibility that these 2 driver clusters could independently becomemore positive/open/high or more negative/closed/low by 2050. The2 future conditions of each driver cluster in 2050 were placed at oppositeends of separate axes, that when intersected at right angles defined theboundaries of 4 scenarios. A third cluster, the most important and mostcertain drivers, was identified from the graph and interpreted as thecommon core of all 4 scenarios.

The stakeholders were divided into 4 syndicates of approximatelyequal skills and knowledge of the aspects of the region. Each syndicatewas assigned the task of creating 1 of the 4 scenarios. For theremainder of the Scenarios Creation Workshop the syndicate groupsexplored relationships between drivers by constructing feedback loopsand influence diagrams, and then assembled creative story lines to linktogether plausible chains of future events. The scenarios were furtherdeveloped by their syndicates after the workshop. The working groupand driver overseers audited each scenario for its plausibility, internallogic and conformity to the parameters of its critical driver clusters. Eachsyndicate contained one high-school student who wrote an imaginativeretrospective about their scenario, looking back from 2050 over theprevious 50 years. Economic, social and environmental summaries and aset of ‘on-track’ indicators for 2010, 2025, and 2050 were also developedfor each scenario.

Common strategic elements

At the Strategies Response Workshop, each syndicate analysed theirscenarios for opportunities, threats, and critical success factors. Inplenary the stakeholders extracted from the syndicate analyses a regionalset of common opportunities, threats, and critical success factors. Thefinal plenary session scored these common strategic elements for theirrelevance to future regional prospects in the ARB2050 scenarios, usingelements from 3 regional strategic plans to illustrate the applicationof this approach. The list of most relevant strategic elements ispreliminary as they are based on strategic plans either mid-way throughimplementation or currently under development. The working groupsummarised the findings, and identified future actions that could buildon the ARB2050 project results.

Foundation and context

The outcomes of the project fall into 3 categories that aredescribed in this section and the two that follow: foundationand context, the 4 scenarios, and common strategic elements.The foundation outcome is a detailed characterisation oftrends over the past 50 years, and the context outcome ismade up of assumptions about the future, drivers, and issuesrelevant to improving regional prospects, and the sets ofshared and critical drivers that shape each scenario.

Trends from 1950 to 2000

The key Avon River Basin environmental, economic, andsocial trends of the past half-century are described in theLocation section above. To reiterate, the Basin of the 1950swas a region of population growth, local education andhealthcare, imperial measurement and currency, productionquotas, land clearing, and valve-based electrical technology,in which economic, social, and environmental activitieswere often considered in isolation. The Basin today has

a lower but stable population, a higher level of externallyobtained education and healthcare, decimal measurement andcurrency, advanced production systems, a cessation of landclearing, network digital technology, and a more integratedappreciation of the region is evident in planning processes.These gradual changes are at once well understood andtaken for granted, yet also surprising and easily forgotten.Beyond providing a simple background to the scenarios,the documentation and illustration of historical trendsdemonstrated to ARB2050 stakeholders that a ‘business-as-usual’ future through to 2050 is improbable and the typeof strategic thinking that will be counter-productive to fullinvolvement in scenario planning, and therefore to improvingregional prospects.

The completed set of Avon River Basin trends covered46 aspects of 14 subjects associated with economic, social,and environmental themes (Table 2). This range of data typesshould be readily accessible for many Australian regions withrelatively modest investment. The complete set of ARB2050trend data was published in O’Connor et al. (2004), and withfurther investment could be the basis of a Basin-wide ‘atlas’to support knowledge sharing and future strategic planning.The planning atlas recently compiled for Willamette Basin innorth-western United States (Hulse et al. 2002) is an exampleof what could be achieved for Australian broadacre regionssuch as the Avon River Basin.

Assumptions about the future

In ARB2050 the number of scenarios was kept to amanageable level by making assumptions about global,national, and state trends, many of which will be inevitableor highly likely through to 2050 because of their inherentmomentum, absence of any evidence of change, physicalconstraints, or the unavoidable lag between human actionand effect. The stakeholders were clearly interested infutures in which human society is still present in the ARB,thus scenarios incorporating war, famine, pandemic, orcatastrophic asteroid strikes were not considered.

Global trends

Globally, the 4 scenarios were assumed as having unfoldedin a future of developed nations continuing the push forglobalisation, even though there are great uncertainties inthe final endpoint. Although there should remain a marketfor ARB agricultural products and scope to develop newmarkets, global forces will continue to set prices and makethe rules (Australian Business Foundation 2000). Whether ornot carbon trading markets and instruments are established,the total global energy and materials consumption ispredicted to rise until at least 2050 (Harper 2000), thepossible point of peak global population of ∼9 billion (Cocks2003). Current reserves of fossil fuel supply are seen aslikely to be insufficient, leading to a push for alternative fuelswell before 2050. The global biosphere effects most relevant

568 Australian Journal of Agricultural Research M. H. O’Connor et al.

Table 2. Historical trends (1950–2000) and/or current status (2000) documented for the Avon River Basin during the ARB2050 project

Theme Subject Aspect of historical trends/current status

Environment Water Catchments, stream monitoring infrastructure, water assets defined in theState Salinity Investment Framework

Soils Agricultural subregions and soil typesVegetation Pre-European types, history of land alienation, remnant vegetation, and

reserve distributionLandscape Extent of land resource threats, salinity increases, risk of salinisation,

and the Rural Towns ProgramBiodiversity Defined regions, mammal decline history, current species statusClimate Change in winter rainfall since 1975 for the Basin and 3 towns within it,

annual temperature fluctuationsEconomy Plant and animal production Land use types, areas sown to various grains, Basin wheat yields relative

to state yields, historical changes in animal herds,diversificationMining Past and present sites and production levelInfrastructure Water supply scheme, electricity distribution, road estate, grain receival

point networkSociety Governance Local government boundary changes, state and federal electorates

Demographics Population changes, age cohorts, indigenous population, distribution ofpopulation change

Regional associations Subregional councils, western margin growth zoneEducation School population, school distribution, post-secondary qualificationsOther Indigenous language groups, household water services, multilingual

speakers, annual town-based events

to the ARB’s future are climate change and greenhousegas emissions due to continued rise in resource use bydeveloping countries.

Australian trends

The Australia of the ARB2050 scenarios was assumedto be a competitive nation ready to engage with theworld to varying degrees. Regardless of whether it is aCommonwealth or Republic in 2050, it remains one nationon its own continent. It was assumed that the ARB’svoluntary/involuntary participation in, and compliance with,national programs and international conventions wouldcontinue to be driven by both direct and indirect funding(Cocks 2003).

Western Australia trends

The Avon River Basin scenarios were based on theassumption that the Basin remained in the jurisdiction ofthe state of Western Australia. The state will participatein attempts to diversify Australia from resource-baseddependency towards a knowledge-and-services economy thatwill be the mark of developed nations in 2050 (WesternAustralian Technology and Industry Advisory Council 2000).The state will most likely remain the arbiter of inter-regional issues, and continue to administer funding onregional infrastructure and social programs. The evolutionof Perth into a coastopolis seems almost certain by 2030(Government of Western Australia 2002), with ongoingpositive and negative effects on the Avon River Basin throughto 2050. The historically strong positive correlation between

demographics and levels of regional resources and servicesshould continue, and increase or decrease in line withthe economic fortunes of the region. Equity of resourceallocation compared with more populous coastal areas ofthe state and nation is less certain. Projected increases inthe Avon Arc population were assumed to be features of theARB’s future (Government of Western Australia 2001). Thisestablished trend will enhance the region’s external linksthrough residents who commute to Perth for work or havefriends and relatives there.

Drivers and issues

Stakeholders developed a final list of 22 drivers with bearingupon the future regional prospects of the Avon River Basin(Table 3). The original 12 drivers proposed by the Workinggroup were retained within the final list; however, the criticalissues associated with each driver were expanded from54 to 114 and their contents were significantly revised. Eachdriver was explicitly defined, statements of retrospect (whathappened before 2000) and prospect (what could happenin the future) were added, along with details of the currentstatus and prospect of each associated issue. Every driver wasassigned an overseer from among the stakeholders to reviewand edit the material as it developed.

Shared and critical drivers

The stakeholder scores for importance and uncertainty ofthe 22 drivers were averaged and graphed (Fig. 4). Fourplausible scenarios were built on a framework derived fromthe position of the 22 drivers on the importance–uncertainty

Scenario planning in the Western Australian Wheatbelt Australian Journal of Agricultural Research 569

Table 3. Driver definitions and associated critical issues generated by the ARB2050 stakeholdersThe current status and future prospects of each issue are described in detail in O’Connor et al. (2004)

Driver Definition Critical issues

1. Alternative fuels Alternative energy sources for transport Biodiesel, ethanoland other economic essentials

2. Animal industries Production of meat from sheep, cattle, Biodiesel, international context,pigs, and goats, as well as milk and single-product reliance, value-adding,wool. Aquaculture is a niche disease-free status, Benefits of ‘cleanenterprise in the Basin and green’, new industries, risk

management, genetically modifiedorganisms

3. Biodiversity The variety of natural life within the Extinction, loss of ecosystem function,Basin, whether it be individual species, decline in vegetation quality, hotspotpopulations, or communities status, economic drivers for

biodiversity protection, perceptionand management, introduced species

4. Capacity building The attraction, development, and retention Capacity building, planning for the futureof individuals, organisations andresources necessary to developopportunities that enhance the Basin

5. Climate The general trend towards drier, warmer Warming and drying, variability andconditions in the second half of the extremes, uncertainty and informed20th Century seems set to continue. response, climate sensitivities andThe relative contribution of natural thresholds, greenhouse emissionsvariability and human-induced climatechange to this process is uncertain

6. Demographics Population size, a measure of our hold Population, ageing, indigenous population,on land-use and habitation within social and cultural diversity, voices ofthe Basin. The size of the human youth, community survivalresource limits the scope fordriving change

7. Education The ability of the Basin to provide Investmenteducation from primary to tertiarylevel to its residents, and to receiveeducation funding that is equitablewith more populous areas ofWestern Australia

8. Emerging industries New or revitalised economic activities Education, aged care, value-adding, lack ofthat have the potential for significant capital, enabling changecontributions to its economy inthe future

9. Infrastructure The physical form of our presence within Infrastructure development, computing,the Basin, the resources that support phone and internet access, transport,the range of activities in which we reticulated water, alternative sourcesengage. In some activities the size and of power supply, governance structures,distribution of these resources limit the standards, relevance and quality, urbanopportunity for further growth and community resources

10. Land A fundamental resource with links to many Secondary salinity, land use, productivity,of the other drivers being considered. soil changes, erosion, decision making,How people use and value land varies integrated landscape management,widely across the Basin, and must diversification, value-adding, intensifiedcontinue to evolve in response to land use, indigenous accesscurrent and future trends

11. Manufacturing and Rural-based manufacturing includes Diversification, constraintsother industries non-agricultural activities such as

flour milling, engineering works,cabinet and furniture making,brick works, and abattoirs.

12. Marketing the Activities and symbols that promote Regional and product branding, ARBAvon River Basin an identity for the entire image, perception of decline

Avon River Basin.(Continued next page)

570 Australian Journal of Agricultural Research M. H. O’Connor et al.

Table 3. (Continued)

Driver Definition Critical issues

13. Minerals and energy Those minerals extracted for local use Infrastructure ageing, renewable energy,(e.g. gypsum) or export (e.g. salt, energy access and development,gold), and local renewable energy greenhouse emissions, mineralsources and imports of fossil fuel production, biomass energyenergy as gases, liquids, or electricity

14. New large-scale The development of industry extensive Industrial cropsindustry across much of the Basin, and

internationally competitive or unique15. Perth – metro- The bias in focus, services, and funding Urban-rural overlap, fly-in fly-out,

centricity towards the population of Perth, the reverse Perth–ARB telecommuteWestern Australian capital

16. Plant industries Production that includes grains such as International context, productivity andwheat, barley and oats, legumes and sustainability, research and development,oilseeds, as well as hay production. farm forestry, value-adding, investments,Horticultural enterprises are included single-product reliance, niche-products,here GMOs, disease-free status

17. Policy and (a) The effect of policies by local, state, Subsidies, regional governance, stateGovernance federal, and international bodies on sustainability policy

the Basin, and (b) the local governancestructures, particularly of localgovernment areas.

18. Service industries Seeking to define and improve the Availability and distribution, tourism,minimum level of service, development health and aged care, education,of critical mass communities, and microbusiness, family supportinfrastructure maintained and enhanced services, professional services

19. Society and culture An ongoing driver that affects many other Partnerships, external influence, east/westmajor drivers. It includes trends in the divide, community infrastructure,makeup of the Basin’s society, its indigenous development, culturalcommon activities, and engagement diversity and awareness, amplificationwith the communities and organisations of Aboriginal place and meaning,in WA, Australia, and internationally social/cultural identity, mobility,

electoral reform20. Telecommuting The potential for the Basin to be promoted Nature of work, Information Technology

and work as an excellent place to live and work servicesthrough telecommuting

21. Tourism The development of events and sites that Eco-cultural tourism, events and sitesbring short- and long-term visitors tothe region

22. Water The characterising element of the Basin. Salinity, global issues, drainage, quality,Human settlement is dependent on channel and floodplain changes, bankwater piped in from coastal regions, condition, scheme water, equity issues,and the landscape is widely affected making a virtue out of necessity, waterby saline groundwater. The Basin has storage/harvesting, economics and3 separate subregions with different managementflow regimes

graph. In the upper-right part of the graph, 6 drivers wereidentified as being the most uncertain, and grouped into2 critical driver clusters. The most important and certaindrivers were termed the shared drivers. These 2 types ofdriver clusters exert different influences on the content ofeach scenario.

Critical drivers define the framework of the unique ‘story’of each scenario. The following two clusters of criticaldrivers were selected from the upper-right quadrant of theimportance–uncertainty graph (Fig. 3):

• Environmental change: climate, policy and Governance,water, and biodiversity.

• New industry and markets: New large-scale industries,manufacturing and other industries, policy and governance,emerging industries, and biodiversity.

Their high uncertainty suggested that the state ofeach of the critical clusters in 2050 could ‘improve’ or‘decline’ relative to their condition today. The product of2 future states for 2 clusters of critical drivers was four

Scenario planning in the Western Australian Wheatbelt Australian Journal of Agricultural Research 571

Alternate Fuels

Animal Production

Other driver

Critical driver clusters Shared driver cluster

Biodiversity

Capacity building

Climate

Demographics

Education

Scenario-shaping driver

Emerging industries

Infrastructure

Land

Manufacturesand otherindustries

Marketingthe ARB

Mineralsand Energy

New large-scale industry

Perth -metro-centricity

Plant production

Policy andgovernance

Society and cultureTelecommutingand work

Tourism

Water

3.0

4.0

5.0

6.0

7.0

8.0

Importance

Unc

erta

inty

New Industries and Markets Environmental change

Shared

3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0

Generated 20 Feb 2004 nresponses = 34

Fig. 4. Average importance–uncertainty values for the 22 ARB2050 drivers, of scores contributed bystakeholders during the Scenarios Creation Workshop. The large squares within the 3 boxes indicatedrivers that were influential on the content and direction of the scenarios. The 2 critical driver clustersare indicated by solid-line boxes and the dashed-line box indicates the shared drivers that are commonto all 4 scenarios.

ARB2050 scenarios (Fig. 5). Variants of this method can beused to create a lesser or greater number of scenarios, but3 or more is generally recommended (Schwartz 1996).

During and after the Scenarios Creation Workshop, eachsyndicate re-checked their developing scenario against thescenario parameters. This was aided by detailed definitionsof the meaning of ‘improve’ and ‘decline’ for each criticaldriver cluster.

(a) Environment improving: a slowing of decline tothe minimum of current predictions, and a return tothe long-term pre-1975 averages. The predicted effect ofdryland salinity is revised through better modelling ofhydrologic processes. When combined with other protectionand enhancement activities, biodiversity is more readilyconserved. Improvements in agronomic practices such asliming and tillage help to protect the land resource. Relevantlocal, state, and federal policy and governance supportthese changes.

(b) Environment declining: much drier and warmerconditions develop across the Basin, driven by climatechange. Salinity eventually stabilises at 30% of the ARB

Harmonywith

Prosperity

Grain and Drain

Saline Growth

Landcare Bounty

New marketsexpanding

New markets notrelevant to ARB

Environmentdeclining

Environmentimproving

Fig. 5. The intersection of future values of 2 critical driver clusters(Environment and New markets) defines the boundaries for fourARB2050 scenarios. On the Environment axis ‘declining’ signifiesreaching future levels of degradation near the current maximumpredictions, and ‘improving’ signifies reaching future levels ofdegradation near the current minimum predictions. On the Newmarkets axis, ‘expanding’ is diversification of the economic basefrom existing and new industries and ‘not relevant’ is essentially‘business-as-usual’.

572 Australian Journal of Agricultural Research M. H. O’Connor et al.

predicted in the 1990s, in part due to declining rainfall.Extreme weather events have become more frequentand unpredictable. Losses of species, populations, andcommunities are accelerated as a result of climate change.Unaffordable solutions to land degradation have led to areasof highly acidic soils that are unsuitable for agriculture. Policyand governance hinders or does not actively assist in tacklingthese issues.

(c) New markets expanding: the ARB diversifiesits economic base and develops supporting industriesand infrastructure. International and national policies,together with emerging market opportunities, favour theARB’s investors in efforts to develop new large-scaleindustries and a bigger range of diverse enterprises.Possibilities include industrial tree crops, biofuels, andvalue-adding to agricultural production, all of which arecurrently being investigated (Enecon 2001; Bartle andShea 2002). The region’s biodiversity has a role in drivingthis change.

(d) New markets not relevant to ARB: whether by choice orin a climate of unfavourable international and national policy,the ARB does not develop new opportunities in industriesoutside the traditional areas of agriculture and pastoralism.Declining access to liquid fossil fuels is remedied by newsources developed elsewhere, rather than biofuels from treecrops in low rainfall areas. Biodiversity either does not have asignificant role in driving this change, or any gains by plantingtrees for alley farming are offset by losses of local biota.Changes to policy and governance at local, state, national,and federal levels either do not materialise or are ineffectiveand hinder this expansion.

In contrast, shared drivers are attributes of the region ofthe future that stakeholders judged would remain relativelycertain and continually important in the Avon River Basinthroughout the period to 2050. They reflect the inertia ofcurrent economic, social, and environmental drivers thatresists substantial regional reconfiguration unless significantcapital, people, or time are invested. Scenarios basedsolely on the shared drivers would read as variantsof ‘business-as-usual’, the common assumption informal and informal strategies that scenario planningis designed to eliminate. The shared drivers for ARB2050were Plant industries, Infrastructure, Land, AlternateFuels, Education, and Demographics. The 4 scenarioswere checked for the inclusion of all 6 shared drivers,and that trajectories of particular future trends wereconsistent where they were incorporated into more thanone scenario.

Four scenarios

Each syndicate developed their scenario in narrative andgraphical terms. Each scenario is described below in terms ofthe overall progress by 2050. The following ‘future histories’provide the flavour of each scenario.

Saline growth (Scenario 1)

In 2050, in a warmer, drier world, the Basin is a mix of vibrant,diversified, and sustainable zones around major centres,value-adding and specialist enterprise sites, surrounded bya broad expanse of more sparsely populated broadacrefarming making a steady income from grains. The regionhas diversified its economic base: agricultural industrieshave incorporated more perennial plants that also drivevalue-added industries. There are expanding inland fisheries,indigenous eco-tourism enterprises, a world-class resorthotel, and a university focussing on disciplines associatedwith the industries, culture, and environment of the region.The remarkable turn-around in the Basin, from an area thatwas experiencing a constant decline in population and thethreatened closure of many smaller towns by 2004 to a slowbut inexorably rising population enjoying enhanced socialconditions and infrastructure and significantly increasedindustrial diversification has occurred. However, the triple-bottom line that accounts for an improving environmentalsituation has remained out of the region’s grasp, a failure ofthe global community to act on key issues and the inherentlag between global climate change and remedial action.

Grain and drain (Scenario 2)

The future options for the Avon River Basin in 2000were clouded by many triple-bottom line uncertainties of aworld intent on globalisation. The region has held onto itsagricultural industries in spite of the challenges of nearly5 decades of declining environment. Diversification outsideagriculture was considered too risky and never really gotstarted. The physical markets for industrial tree crop productsfailed to eventuate, and markets for ecosystem services (suchas provision of fresh water and amenity) lacked the necessarypolicy and governance kick-start. In 2050 the region producesdouble the cereal harvest of 2000, and as such continues tomake a contribution to the WA and Australian economies(agriculture is ∼3% of GDP now and is likely to be less than1% by 2050). However, the region is much poorer socially.As the average temperature climbed slowly and rainfalldeclined, people left. They were going anyway as phases offarm amalgamation reduced the need for agricultural labourand made many small rural towns unviable. As a result,traditional agricultural industries remained the dominantactivity, and continued to grow in productivity. The dryingtrend of the 1980s and 1990s continued, while water qualityfell due to salinity and increasing drainage; both of theseadded to the threats to biodiversity. Attempts to rationalisegovernance structures were defeated in referenda. This isa future that feels like an old couch: hard at times butcomfortingly familiar.

Landcare bounty (Scenario 3)

This is the story of the ARB reaching a sustainable state(some define sustainable as triple-bottom line performance)

Scenario planning in the Western Australian Wheatbelt Australian Journal of Agricultural Research 573

in 2050 built on local agricultural and landcare expertise. Inthe year 2000, solutions to the ARB’s challenges were notentirely obvious, with a range of significant environmental,social, and economic challenges looming. The regionalimplications of global climate models, 1–5◦C temperaturerises, and 20–60% rainfall decline by 2050, never wentmuch beyond the lower end of the range. As systemsknowledge improved, so did the forecasting, and concertedaction reduced the human contribution to global climatechange. Risk management systems got fancier, commitmentto hard-won ‘green’ sustainable credentials strengthened,and the Basin’s farmers could still grow crops and herdanimals to market at a profit. Attempts at diversification ledto a significant number of micro-businesses but they neveramounted to more than a few percent of the region’s economicoutput. All through the first half of the 21st Century theARB was driven by two slogans that bolstered state, nationaland global action: ‘Think global, act local’ and ‘Partner orPerish’. Planning and commitment to the Basin paid off indeveloping sustainable agriculture, and it helped to retainand even increase the population. The region remained instep with national and global trends through the partnershipsit made and kept.

Harmony with prosperity (Scenario 4)

In 2050 the world is only a little warmer and drier. Throughhalf a century of concerted policy and governance effortsto achieve a more sustainable triple-bottom line, theAvon River Basin experienced a remarkable turn-around:from a declining resource base in 2000 to a diversesustainable region in 2050. Markets for the ARB’s diverserange of products were found in the sophisticated tradingblocks of the 2020s and their successors, the decarbonatedand dematerialised open global economy of 2050. Somesmaller towns were abandoned in the relentless marchof farm amalgamation, and a number were saved andeven enhanced by the new industries dotted across thelandscape. Although indigenous people have remained thegrowing cohort of the Basin’s population, their health andeducational disadvantages were not eliminated until almost2030. Ownership, access to and use of land, and enterprisessuch as eco-tourism promoted indigenous culture andsocio-economic development. In a post-fossil fuel globaleconomy, alternative fuels (biofuels) are a necessary elementand the ARB manufactures, consumes, and exports itsown by 2050.

Scenario snapshots

The materials assembled by the scenario syndicates werereviewed several times by driver overseers and the workinggroup to ensure that all scenarios described the future atthe same level of detail, and were consistent with theirown critical driver and other framework parameters. Theproject working group subsequently identified a need for

scenario snapshots, and textual and graphical summaries.The complete descriptions were summarised into singleparagraph summaries of economic, environmental, and socialtrends and outcomes for each scenario over the next half-century (Table 4).

The historical trends and plausible future values of3 headline indicators — one each of social, economic,environmental — were also graphed to form a snapshot ofthe broad possibilities for the Avon River Basin to 2050(Fig. 6). These snapshots will provide stakeholders notdirectly involved in ARB2050 with an additional meansof understanding the essence of each scenario. If furtherdetail is required they can refer to the comprehensivedescriptions published in O’Connor et al. (2004). Inaddition the snapshots are in a form that would facilitatetheir integration into large-scale scenarios (e.g. for thestate of Western Australia, or for Australian broadacreagricultural regions).

Common strategic elements

The first step in developing strategic responses to theARB2050 scenarios concluded the project activities. Duringthe Strategic Response Workshop, each syndicate consideredlists of the opportunities, threats, and critical success factorsrelevant to their scenario. In plenary, these scenario-specificstrategic elements were summarised by the stakeholders intoa set of common opportunities, threats, and critical successfactors for the ARB region out to 2050. Common strategicelements were those that appeared in at least 3 or moresyndicate lists, or were agreed to following further discussionin plenary.

Opportunities

In total the scenario syndicates generated 44 opportunities,ranging from 6 to 17 per scenario. This list was condensed tothe following 6 common opportunities that were judged to belikely to contribute to improving regional prospects in mostof the ARB2050 scenarios.

(1) Inwards migration: the attraction of new people to theregion as permanent residents or temporary residentssuch as post-secondary students.

(2) Natural resource management: the adoption oftechnologies such as landscape design, catchmentmanagement, salt-tolerant cropping, and integrationof conservation and production in the samelandscape.

(3) Service industry benefits: generated by the establishmentof aged care, health care, and education to servicethe rising demands of the capital city; include newinfrastructure, population increase, and local accessto services that would not otherwise be available inthe region.

574 Australian Journal of Agricultural Research M. H. O’Connor et al.

Tab

le4.

Sum

mar

yof

the

soci

al,e

cono

mic

,and

envi

ronm

enta

latt

ribu

tes

ofth

eA

von

Riv

erB

asin

in20

50un

der

each

scen

ario

Rel

ativ

ech

ange

sin

attr

ibut

esar

eex

pres

sed

asth

eco

nditi

onin

2050

com

pare

dw

ith20

00.T

he‘A

llsc

enar

ios’

row

cont

ains

the

attr

ibut

esco

mm

onto

alls

cena

rios

Scen

ario

Soci

ety

Eco

nom

yE

nvir

onm

ent

All

scen

ario

sIn

dige

nous

peop

lear

eth

egr

owin

gco

hort

ofth

eFa

rmin

gre

mai

nspr

ofita

ble

due

econ

omie

sof

scal

eTe

mpe

ratu

reri

ses

and

rain

fall

decl

ines

.Bio

dive

rsity

Bas

in’s

popu

latio

n.O

n-fa

rmpo

pula

tion

(far

mam

alga

mat

ion,

impr

oved

prod

uctiv

ity,

rem

ains

unde

rth

reat

decl

ine

and

seve

rals

mal

ltow

nsab

ando

ned.

plan

tbre

edin

g,an

dne

wm

arke

topp

ortu

nitie

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bout

50%

offa

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onal

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mod

ities

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alga

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and

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and

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ople

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ulat

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rise

toN

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essi

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ses

and

gain

s:T

ree

plan

ting

and

abi

odiv

erse

(Sce

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and

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inG

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and

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&fr

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(Sce

nari

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500

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1M

t.A

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vege

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ier

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equa

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betw

een

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me

and

serv

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dam

age

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ityov

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in.E

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inla

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ts$5

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reen

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cena

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sto

the

east

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gan

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ewm

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han

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aine

dop

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mm

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wer

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ther

than

plan

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rial

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ucts

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ym

icro

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ses

butl

owim

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tion

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mon

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mm

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ies:

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latio

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45%

toD

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gric

ultu

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nced

byB

iodi

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ity

valu

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tate

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pros

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ty∼6

600

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s

Scenario planning in the Western Australian Wheatbelt Australian Journal of Agricultural Research 575

Population

60

70

50

56

43

40

1950 2000 2050

Pop

ulat

ion

(×10

3 ) 66

52

46

Saline Growth

Grain and Drain

Landcare Bounty

Harmony withProsperity

Saline Farmland

6

40

30

20

10

30

1950 2000 2050

Are

a af

fect

ed (

%)

15

Saline GrowthGrain and Drain

Landcare Bounty

Harmony with Prosperity

Wheat Harvest

2

4

6

8

4.94.0

9.7

1950 2000 2050

Mt

10

?

Historical trend

All scenarios couldpotentially reach avalue between 4.9and 9.7 Mt

Scenario ranges

Fig. 6. A snapshot of past and future trends of 3 Avon River Basinheadline indicators: economic (wheat production), social (population),and environmental (extent of saline farmland). Historical trends1950–2000 are shown in the left half of each graph and plausible futurevalues 2000–2050 are shown in the right half of each graph.

(4) Clean and green production: of broadacre agriculturalcommodities will be a valuable marketing tool that canbecome returns to the region. It may require internationalstandard quality assurance schemes that monitor theproduction chain and decisions about the introductionof genetically modified food.

(5) Trading on a positive safe lifestyle: could be a means ofattracting new residents. The Avon River Basin lifestylewas considered to be safe relative to life in capital cities,and in regions affected by international insecurities suchas terrorism, and to urban issues such as overcrowding,air pollution and water quality.

(6) Animal-based farming futures: an opportunity in whichgrain production is reduced in areas where it is clearlynot sustainable, and in which the returns from genericand specialist animal-based products have potential toincrease over time.

Threats

Beyond missed opportunities, there are threats that couldpotentially limit or eliminate improved regional prospects.These threats are risks to social, economic, and environmentalinvestment and sustainability that must be addressed or atleast assessed in regional strategies. From an initial set of34 threats, the stakeholders identified the following 9 that arerelevant to all or most ARB2050 scenarios.

(1) Infrastructure decline in areas such as power distribution,water supply, roads, and public services were identifiedin the earlier critical issues analysis as an existing trendfor which future remedies are uncertain. This trend,if perpetuated, could reduce the region’s opportunityto attract and sustain new people, investment, andindustries.

(2) Disease and pest introductions that reduce or destroyyield or increase costs of agricultural products could limitthe future economy of the region. Biosecurity systemsdesigned to counter these introductions are primarily inthe province of state and federal governments rather thanthe Avon River Basin.

(3) Dependence on grain as the major economic activity ofthe region has continued throughout the 20th Century.All scenarios except Grain and Drain (Scenario 2)address this historical reliance with the developmentof new industries and increases in animal productionover the next 50 years. Even if this diversificationreaches the maximum suggested in the scenarios, grainwill remain a significant proportion of the regionaleconomy in 2050, in an era of declining terms of tradefor agriculture.

(4) Un-inspirational government policies include statepolicies that are metro-centric (most services go to thecapital city Perth) or antagonistic (incentives to developfarm water supplies are hampered by continuance ofsubsidised piped water), local government policiesthat have insufficient links to regional needs, and thepotential for revision of policy every few years if adifferent political party is elected.

(5) Lack of political influence could persist in the futureas regional population declines as a percentage of stateand national population, and if ‘one-vote one-value’legislation is enacted. Unless the region undertakesactivities to maintain and enhance its external profileand relevance, regional prospects will suffer.

(6) Lack of regional effectiveness of government (all levels)is a by-product of the Avon River Basin as a naturalregion that overlaps two or more electoral and regulatoryzones of local, state, and national governments. Thethreat to the region is a reliance on effective coordinationbetween and across these government zones toattract partnerships with government that cover theentire Basin.

576 Australian Journal of Agricultural Research M. H. O’Connor et al.

(7) Losing out to other regions occurs when new resourcedistributions (e.g. infrastructure), population (e.g.moving to where work is available), and investments(e.g. processing plant or university campus) are skewedin distribution or wholly attracted to other regions ofWestern Australia in preference to the Avon River Basin.This could occur when other regions attract a greaterproportion of state and federal government funding ormajor private infrastructure investment.

(8) Releasing investment capital for change reflects aconcern among stakeholders about the amount of capitaltied up within regional agricultural enterprises, and theflow of profits and borrowing into investments outsidethe region. In a situation where external capital is lackingand the Basin’s internal capital cannot be leveraged forthe new development, future economic diversificationmay be limited. It should be noted that the exact natureof this capital and its flows has not been quantified forthe Avon River Basin.

(9) Lack of human capacity to change is the threat of social,economic, and personal inertia. Strategic and ongoinginvestment in community capacity building could meetthis threat.

Critical success factors

Critical success factors are actions and acquisitions thatmust be achieved in order to improve and sustain futureregional prospects of the Avon River Basin. Most of thesefactors are required in the short to medium term. They weredevised by the stakeholders to maximise opportunities in theirscenario while minimising threats, and then summarised inplenary into a list of factors relevant to all scenarios. From31 scenario-specific factors, the following 5 common criticalsuccess factors were developed.

(1) Quality of governance delivers the context in which theAvon River Basin stakeholders will strive to improveregional prospects and the partnerships that must bemaintained in order to sustain a presence of value in futureinvestment decisions.

(2) Research and development must be targetted andsustained, responsive to the issues and opportunities ofthe present day and those likely to emerge in the future.

(3) Infrastructure resources to implement change arecritical to scenarios based on future agriculturalproduction systems (e.g. communications technologyfor remote diagnosis), attraction and retention of newindustries (e.g. reliable energy supply), and facilities thatcontribute to vibrant communities (e.g. recreation andschooling) that will be attractive places in which to liveand work.

(4) Capacity to change reflects the pressing need foreducation and training that maintains communitycapacity to identify, assess, and respond to opportunities

and threats, accept change as inevitable and revitalising,and accept the possibility of social, economic, andenvironmental futures unlike the status quo.

(5) Favourable international choices are critical in theirfuture effects on areas such as sustained partnerships(e.g. carbon trading), access to current and new marketsfor ongoing revenue (e.g. global trade agreements),remediation of global environmental problems (e.g.biodiversity decline and human pandemics), andconduits for migration (e.g. new residents able to moveto the region).

Discussion

The way forward

Avon River Basin 2050 identified two pivotal elementsof improving future regional prospects: relevant researchand major (region-sized) investment. The first is inherentlyobvious in a project focussed on future unknowns anduncertainties. The second was the result of stakeholderconcern that scenario planning would do nothing more thanlist the region’s issues, an activity that has been conductedmany times in the past.

By its inherent use of core drivers and critical butuncertain drivers, scenario planning points the way forwardfor research that will be highly relevant to improvingprospects in regional Australia. This research must berelevant and applicable to improving regional prospectsin the future regardless of whether any of the scenarioscomes to pass. Research related to the set of core driverswill be important as they are likely to feature in theregion’s future. The identification of two clusters of critical(uncertain and important) future drivers neatly selects theother essential type of research that will be required. Somepossibilities include research on managing climate changeand variability, economic diversification options, and how todevelop rural populations and infrastructure in agriculturalregions where the trend is in the opposite direction. Futureresearch focus should be a mix of commissioning newresearch at the region and subregion scale and maintainingawareness of relevant research conducted outside the region.Avon River Basin 2050 identified two research supporttools that will be essential in supporting this research, andare not yet fully developed in regional Australia. First, thechallenges experienced in characterising historical trendsduring the ARB2050 project demonstrate that regions needto invest in collecting, analysing, and disseminating data onpast environmental, social, and economic trends. These datacan also be valuable to future research and the enhancementof regional identity and allegiance. Second, many of the‘what-if’ questions generated during and in response toscenario and strategic planning need to be modelled usingspecific regional data, often with a spatial component toidentify subregional effects. We suspect that these research

Scenario planning in the Western Australian Wheatbelt Australian Journal of Agricultural Research 577

support tools are only partly available in most regionsof Australia.

ARB2050 also contained a ‘generating investments’element that ran in parallel with the main scenariobuilding activity. From an initial set of ideas, the top-10preliminary investment initiatives were selected. Followingthe elaboration of these ideas into a set of 10 one-pagebriefs, the stakeholders determined that their preferredinvestment initiative was the initiation of the developmentof the Grainbelt Futures Co-operative Research Centre. Thisinitiative is essentially a research-based centre that couldbring together several of the research themes described above.The Co-operative Research Centre’s research focus willbe on sustainable business and community outcome. Threeprovisional research focal areas have been specified: (a) thedevelopment of integrated business systems for the grainbelt,(b) infrastructure provision, and (c) regional/communityadaptation, by bringing together technologies, expertise,resources, infrastructure, and investment in new ways (seeAppendix 6 in O’Connor et al. 2004).

Regional scenario building

Rural regional scenario planning presents several unusualchallenges not typically encountered when conductingscenario planning within a single corporation, organisation,or industry. We found it necessary to reduce the project scopeby stopping short of contributing to strategic plan revision (astypically happens in large-scale scenario planning activities),as there was a need to encourage stakeholders to participatein the process. Thus our project aimed to (a) increase futuresthinking and activity in the region, (b) challenge ‘business-as-usual’ thinking, (c) increase awareness among stakeholdersthat their activities overlap the Basin’s boundary, and(d) develop a dataset of past trends and present conditionsto support the scenario planning and future activities.Hence regional scenario planning projects should begin bymaking an assessment of regional capacity to participate inthe process.

We invited a wide range of regional stakeholders, mostlya single representative from each activity, organisation, orenterprise, in order to have the capacity to cover driversand issues across the triple-bottom line. Unlike singleorganisation or single endeavour scenario planning, whereparticipation is a management directive and scheduledactivity, the resources and priorities of stakeholderorganisations ultimately dictated participation in projectactivities at workshop events or between them. Seasonalfactors and the annual farming calendar affected theavailability of stakeholders to contribute, particularlybetween workshop events. Stakeholders were oftenknowledgeable across several areas, particularly in plantindustries and nature conservation, which mitigated lossof continuity when the initial invitees were unavailableand then replaced by proxies. A related problem was that

a substantial minority was not aware that their activitiesoverlapped the Basin, particularly those with a main activityfocussed on economy or society. Some education along theselines was required in the early stages, using materials beingdeveloped in research on historical trends. Solutions to thedisruption of continuity of participation we experienced inARB2050 could include extension of the project to 2 years,a longer start-up phase, and increases in budget, number ofparticipants, and project staff.

The results of ARB2050 suggested that the majorityof participants in regional scenario building must bestakeholders that live and work within the region. Theinherent loyalty and enthusiasm of regional stakeholdersduring the syndicate work led to more optimistic scenarios.Each syndicate viewed the challenges and difficultiesof their scenario settings as an opportunity for creativeproblem-solving. Rather than extrapolate to a pessimisticendpoint it was evident that syndicates had independentlyproceeded with an unwritten goal of optimal continuance ofhuman society in the Avon River Basin to 2050 and beyond.This outcome suggested that rural regional residents willprobably develop a sense of ownership of the scenariosand any strategies based upon them, an outcome lesslikely if scenarios are developed and delivered by externalexperts. Those external to the Basin might conclude fromthe historical trends (Fig. 5, Table 2) that the region couldstruggle to achieve a more sustainable triple-bottom line by2050 and may not be inspired to think laterally by the drivefor survival.

Communication of the final scenarios is the mostchallenging aspect of the ARB2050 project, and one that isongoing (CSIRO 2004). In regional scenario planning withstakeholders the quality of the scenario outputs is alwaysuncertain, despite best intentions. This uncertainty arose fromtwo concerns identified by the working group:

• the regional stakeholders, with their broad range of skillsand varying levels of time and resources to commit to theproject, might not be able to agree on the issues, and cometo agreement on critical driver clusters;

• participation in the process might raise each stakeholder’spreferred future to a level at which they would dismiss thescenarios as irrelevant.

Ultimately these concerns were mitigated by thepragmatic actions of the stakeholders, who saw the value tothe region in producing a complete set of scenarios, despitethe concerns they may have had about the emphasis onparticular trends or issues. The shared set of important andcertain drivers at the core of all 4 scenarios also broughtcommunication challenges. At the whole-of-region scalethe core set of drivers that are shared by all scenarios canmake it difficult for scenario users to readily distinguishbetween the final scenario descriptions. Common techniquessuch as region-scale schematic illustrations of the future

578 Australian Journal of Agricultural Research M. H. O’Connor et al.

may pose interpretation challenges, as each scenario wouldappear to have a similar pattern in the landscape. As withother aspects of human endeavour, the important differencesare in the detail. We found the differences much easier todescribe by using narratives of the nature and timing ofscenario events, imaginative retrospectives looking backfrom 2050 to today, and summaries of key aspects of thetriple-bottom line.

Relevance to other regions

Agricultural regions in southern Australia face a range ofissues that will require near-term and mid-term strategicdecisions and risk assessments (Grains Research andDevelopment Corporation 2004). Many of these issues werealso identified in ARB2050. They include the exclusionor adoption of genetic modification into plant and animalproduction systems, sanctioning of artificial drainagenetworks connected to natural drainage channels to providea rapid reduction in salinised land, the attraction of majornew large-scale industries that improve the sustainabilityof current land use while making a contribution to therevitalisation and growth of one or more rural towns,depopulation, the transition to new economically pricedfuel sources as fossil fuel costs rise and availabilitydeclines in the decades prior to 2050, and whether toremain with the subsidised water supply schemes ordevelop local desalination or other sources. The projectalso highlighted several issues that require monitoring,political participation, and partnerships, including theoutputs of research into climate change/variability, theemergence of global trade blocks and free trade agreements,and national and global carbon trading and environmentalmanagement systems. ARB2050 also demonstrated thatmany interdependent issues have not been adequatelyaccommodated in strategic plans that have only aneconomic, social, or environmental jurisdiction. Therelationship between economic change and socio-culturaldevelopment in regional Australia is particularly in need offurther research, in order to identify settings that may be morebeneficial for the region than aiming for the economic orsocial optimum.

The materials produced by ARB2050 — historicaltrend analysis, detailed compilation and analysis of criticalissues, scenarios — are relevant to the aspirations and plansof agricultural regions in Australia and elsewhere in theworld. Many of the post-1950 historical trends identifiedfor the Avon River Basin reflect state, national, and globalchanges in agricultural industries, environmental changeand outlook, and rural communities. Examples of thesechanges include the relentless decline in terms of trade,the declining share of agriculture in state and nationaleconomies, the end of large-scale clearing and emergenceof landscape planning to integrate production withconservation, and the decline of population, infrastructure,

and whole communities in regional areas. On the basisthat the Avon River Basin covers about 20% of Australia’ssouthern grainbelt (Fig. 1), its issues and drivers are likelyto be relevant to a significant area of southern Australia.For example, the obstacles to sustainable land use inthe Murray–Darling Basin in eastern Australia includecontinued decline in water quality and ecosystem healthrelated to past systems of natural resource management;increasing scarcity of water resources intensifyingconflict between environmental, social, and economicusers; difficult choices about protection of economic,environmental, and social assets; access to knowledge; andcapacity building for communities (Murray–Darling BasinCommission 2001).

What then can other regions adopt from ARB2050?The most obvious is the method used during the project,from working group formation, through critical issuesdevelopment and scenario building, to strategic responseactivities. This sequence of steps is typical of many scenarioplanning projects, whether intended for regions, urbancentres, corporations, organisations, or individuals (Schwartz1996). Most of the set of ARB2050s 22 critical issuesencompass the economic, social, and environmental aspectsof sustainability. These issue names could be adopted bygrainbelt regions outside the Avon River Basin as a templatefor analysis of their own historical trends and future prospects.The historical trend data and maps assembled for ARB2050highlighted the value in studying the enormous quantityof online and offline data to produce a view of the pastand present that is specific to a region, rather than makingassumptions that it has followed larger (statistical division,state and national) trends at all times. The scenarios arethemselves quite specific to the region in which they weredeveloped, but their documentation in the form of narrative,triple-bottom line trends, and story lines (see O’Connor et al.2004) could serve as a template for structuring scenariodescriptions in other regions. Examples of formats usedin other regional scenarios in Australia and internationallywere made available via links on the ARB2050 website(CSIRO 2004).

The most common objective of scenario planning isto make short-term and medium-term strategic planningmore robust, i.e. more likely to withstand a wider rangeof future conditions. The representatives of regions thathave defined their preferred future (sometimes labelled‘desirable future’ or ‘vision translated’) are empoweredin their strategic involvement with other regions, stateand national governments and industry bodies, andcorporations. Without a preferred future, regions can becaptive to the visions and strategies of others. ARB2050 hasalready contributed to the region’s long-term plan for naturalresource management sustainability currently being finalisedby the Avon Catchment Council. In contrast to early drafts,the plan now includes a section on scenarios, including a

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description of ARB2050 drivers and a preferred future forthe region.

Building on ARB2050

Scenarios provide regions with plausible futures, ratherthan predictions. What value then is an exercise such asARB2050 in improving regional prospects, if the futurewill probably contain elements of all 4 scenarios as wellas many uncertainties? Over the next 50 years the ARBwill undergo considerable change in all manner of thingsimportant to its residents. The surprising nature of manychanges since 1950 is proof enough that life in 2050will be sufficiently different as to continually surprisethose of us who live through the next half a century.Thus, scenario planning is building the capacity of theregion to reject ‘business-as-usual’ as a mindset and adefault future.

Conversely, the project revealed many trends and coredrivers that will remain certain and important throughout thenext 50 years. They are the cornerstones of the ARB’s future,the daily business that must necessarily be excellently done.Over time this task will increasingly fall to the generation ofthe youngest ARB2050 stakeholder-participants, 4 studentsfrom Years 10 and 11 at Merredin High School. Shouldthe region’s prospects be stimulated by exercises such asARB2050, there is every possibility that a greater numberof their generation will still reside and prosper in the regionin 2050.

Benefits from the ARB2050 scenarios will be generatedif a more future-aware culture develops and persists amongthe region’s strategic thinkers and investors, and if the projectencourages them to build or revise strategies that are morerobust in the widest possible range of potential futures.Equally important will be the attraction of substantial newinvestment in the region, for which the Grainbelt Futures CRCoutlined above could play a significant role.

Acknowledgments

The project was supported by funding from the CSIRO Waterfor a Healthy Country flagship project, the Avon CatchmentCouncil, Wheatbelt Development Commission, and theDepartment of Agriculture Western Australia. Historicaldata were kindly made available by the Departmentsof Agriculture and Planning and Infrastructure WesternAustralia, Australian Bureau of Statistics, and the StateRecord Office of Western Australia. Stakeholder participantsof the ARB2050 project contributed their time and expertiseduring and between workshops. The authors thank theorganisers of the Future Broadacre Agricultural Landscapesconference (Joondalup, Western Australia, June 2004), forthe opportunity to present this paper. The paper benefitedconsiderably from the comments of two anonymous refereesand the editor.

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