Scenarios to Provide Context for Horizon Scanning: Backcasting North American Forest Futures from 2090 to 2035

A scenario backcasting project, an offshoot of the Forest Futures Horizon Scanning system, was carried out for the USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station’s Strategic Foresight Group. The horizon scanning team, from the University of Houston Foresight program, sought to provide context for the scanning hits and emerging issues identified through scanning by linking them to a set of scenarios. Scanning hits and emerging issues could then be analyzed and understood in relation to the scenarios; the ways that emerging issues might develop under different scenarios could be explored. A baseline scenario and three alternative scenarios for the year 2035 were backcast from existing 2090 scenarios. These 2035 scenarios provide a context from which policymakers can track the emergence of scenarios and craft responses to avoid scenarios they consider undesirable and work toward scenarios they consider preferable.