Global Environmental Change 12 (2002) 97–104 The future is not what it used to be: participatory integrated assessment in the Georgia Basin James Tansey*, Jeff Carmichael, Rob VanWynsberghe, John Robinson Sustainable Development Research Institute, University of British Columbia, 1924 West Mall, Vancouver, Canada V6T 1Z2 Abstract Integrated assessment (IA) is a rapidly evolving field and in recent years the introduction of participatory methods has resulted in the development of a more diverse set of tools. The Georgia Basin Futures Project is presented and reviewed in the context of this expanding portfolio of IA methodologies. The project is an ambitious attempt to combine qualitative scenario methods with a computer-based gaming tool on a regional scale. The paper suggests that the particular combination of methods and the scale of the analysis represent a viable model for the future regional IAs. r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Men, forever tempted to lift the veil of the future— with the aid of computers or horoscopes or the intestines of sacrificial animals—have a worse record to show in these ‘‘sciences’’ than in almost any scientific endeavor (Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind, Vol. 2: Willing, Ch. 14, 1978). The future isn’t what it used to be (Arthur C. Clarke). 1. Introduction Integrated assessment (IA) is a rapidly evolving field of research, located in a turbulent territory between science and public policy. A range of definitions of IA can be found in the literature (see, for example, van der Sluis, 1997) of which the most inclusive is: ‘Integrated assessment is an interdisciplinary process of combining, interpreting, and communicating knowledge from diverse scientific disciplines in such a way that the whole set of cause-effect interactions of a problem can be evaluated from a synoptic perspective’ (Rotmans and Dowlatabadi, 1998). Thus there are two defining features of IA. First, an IA must reach beyond the bounds of a single discipline and address more than one sector or one aspect of the problem under consideration. Second, it must have as a central purpose ‘‘to inform policy and decision-making, rather than to advance knowledge for its intrinsic value’’ (Weyant et al., 1996). This paper describes a project that seeks to significantly expand this second purpose through a novel approach to modelling and through a much broader commitment to public engagement. Two dominant forces interact to shape the further evolution of IA. One force emphasises the need to improve the internal quality, rigour and consistency of technical models. While acknowledging that IA is outside of the realm of normal science (Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1993; Jaeger et al., 1998), there remains a strong argument for improving the quality of technical models. IA modellers typically accept the presence of uncertainty and the inherent limitations of predictive models. Nonetheless, they argue that not every future is equally possible in biogeophysical terms and suggest that the goal ought to be to assess ‘not implausible’ futures (Yohe et al., 1999). The second force manifests as a demand for a greater role for public stakeholders in IA for both substantive and procedural reasons. Stakeholders may have a substantive role to play in providing context specific ‘local’ knowledge to researchers (for instance, Cohen, 1997). Secondly, since stakeholders (by definition) are likely to be affected by the policy under consideration in an IA exercise, they have an important procedural role to play. This argument assumes that more relevant and effective policies can be designed through stakeholder *Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-604-822-0400; fax: +1-604-822- 9191. E-mail address: jtansey@sdri.ubc.ca (J. Tansey). 0959-3780/02/$ - see front matter r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII:S0959-3780(02)00011-0