Scenario planning for supporting of disaster risk reduction innovation policy

Scenario planning provides a way for system thinking of driving forces and their interactions (or cause/effect relationships) and thus helping for construction of the knowledge structure of future environment and their strategic implication for DRR management and innovations. Also, scenario planning helps in discovering and widening the thinking of future needs in DRR and possible application contexts of future DRR innovation. Especially, by using a trend-impact-consequences steps, it is easily for guiding the participants to construct a scenario in more logical way, by which also helps to identify more comprehensive portfolio of options or action from the cause/effect relationships. However, due to the subjective nature of the scenario planning process, experts from different background and with different experiences may have different view for the knowledge structure of future environment, thus the results should be conducted with a solid basis of research, literature review and discussion to ensure that the driving forces considered are supported by enough evidences to ensure the scenario credibility. The process for discussion and building of scenario is complex and time consuming, and the quality will rely on a good process design, especially supported evidences and stakeholder dialogues will help to deliver a convincing result.