NSL – Netzwerk Stadt und Landschaft ETH Zürich
  • Projects
      • Projects of the Chairs
        • Prof. Dr. Bryan T. Adey | Infrastructure Management
        • Prof. Dr. Tom Avermaete | History and Theory of Urban Design
        • Prof. Dr. Kay W. Axhausen | Traffic and Transport Planning
        • Prof. Dr. Francesco Corman | Transport Systems
        • Prof. Christophe Girot | Landscape Architecture
        • Prof. Dr. Adrienne Grêt-Regamey | Planning of Landscape and Urban Systems (PLUS)
        • Prof. Dr. David Kaufmann | Spatial Development and Urban Policy
        • Prof. Hubert Klumpner | Architecture and Urban Design
        • Dr. Anastasios Kouvelas | Traffic Engineering and Control
        • Prof. Dr. Christian Schmid | Sociology
        • Prof. Milica Topalovic | Architecture and Territorial Planning
        • EiR PD Dr. Joris Van Wezemael | Spatial Transformation Laboratories (STL)
        • Prof. em Dr. h. c. Günther Vogt | Landscape Architecture
        • ETH Wohnforum – ETH CASE
        • NSL Archive
      • NSL Colloquia – The NSL Colloquia are a bi-annual presentation of exceptional work under a rotating theme determined by the inviting professor.
      • NSL Projects
        • Future Cities Lab Global
        • Urban Potential and Strategies in Metropolitan Territories
 – The Zurich Metropolitan Region as an Example (NFP65)
        • Landscape Visualization and Modeling Lab (LVML)
      • NSL Forum: Pandemie? Mitten im Klimawandel. Was bedeutet das für die räumliche Entwicklung der Schweiz? Ein Dialog.
      • Former Chairs
    Close
  • Teaching
    • Teaching
      • Bachelor and Master Degree Programmes, Department ARCH
      • Bachelor and Master Degree Programmes, Department BAUG
      • MSc in Spatial Development and Infrastructure Systems
      • MAS/CAS Spatial Development
      • MAS Urban and Territorial Design
      • MAS in Housing
      • Doctoral Programme in Landscape and Urban Studies
      • The teaching component of the NSL seeks to impart the knowledge and skills needed to develop the standard strengths of spatial planning and their interaction as well as the ability to develop strategies for the solution of spatial problems. These are central prerequisites for a responsible and successful exercise of planning functions in the service of the public commonwealth and of private companies. Especially important in fufilling these prerequisites is the quality of university-level education: graduate and post-graduate work as well as professional development in spatial, urban and landscape planning. The ETH Zurich has offered programmes such as continuing education courses and post-graduate programmes (NDS, now MAS) since 1965. The NSL (Network City and Landscape) is responsible for these courses and programmes.
    Close
  • Publications
    • Cover NL 56NSL Newsletter – The NSL brings the experts at ETH Zurich together and also maintains a dialogue with other groups that deal with or are interested in issues relating to cities and landscapes.
    • 9783038602767_Agadir_Avermaet_VSPublications of NSL Chairs – A complete list of publications can be reached via the following link, which also includes advanced search capabilities:
      • ETH Zürich Research Collection
    • DISP_58/3_CoverdisP – The Planning Review – The interdisciplinary scientific journal covers the topics of spatial development, urban planning, landscape and environmental planning, landscape architecture, traffic planning, and regional and environmental economics, as well as special issues on specific themes.
      • Publishing in disP – The Planning Review
      • Publisher
      • Book Review Guidelines
      • Editorial Staff
      • Latest Issue
      • facebook
    Close
  • Current
  • Contact
      • en
        • de
        • fr
        • it
      • Search

    • Close

Backcasting – Looking Backwards to Reach the Desired Future

Backcasting is a planning method that identifies a desired future and then evaluates how this desired state can be reached. But how would this desired future look like? Searching for ideas and visions promotes creative solutions and stimulates discussions. 

We are familiar with forecasting methods that project different pathways resulting in different future outcomes. Forecasts provide different options of future conditions often characterized by a certain probability. Weather forecasts for example evaluate different probabilities about weather conditions in the near future. From a planning perspective however, we would like to know how to reach one specific desired future state. What kind of management strategies or regulations are required? How should we act today to reach the desired future? Answering these questions is crucial for decision-making today yet it is very challenging to evaluate the effect of interventions.

In the transdisciplinary research project «Mountland» running for more than nine years, the PLUS chair evaluated which policy measures had to be implemented at what point in time to effectively maintain the cultural landscape in a Swiss mountain region (Figure 1). First of all, the desired future state was assessed with choice experiments in which people were asked to rank visualizations of mountain landscapes. Thus, the preferences for alternative future landscapes were determined. Then, several policy measures including a more restrictive spatial planning policy or a change in the agricultural policy were evaluated.

Effects of Direct Payments Level off

Results show how, when and where to best intervene the system to reach a desired target: An increase in direct payments for mountain agriculture for example helps to reach the desired future state within few years after implementation, but the effect levels off after the implementation period. Thus, this is a useful strategy if rapid adaption is required but its urgency is not very pronounced. By contrast, early spatial planning interventions are more effective than later ones, i.e. the later the policy is implemented, the bigger the gap between the realized and the desired future state.

The study also reveals effects of the combination of interventions as opposed to single interventions highlighting trade-offs and synergies between policy measures. Results indicate that a set of interventions is more likely to reach the desired future than single interventions. These combined interventions seem to be more robust to global change. Changes in the boundary conditions have however a major effect on how close we might come to the desired future state and these changes are very difficult to predict. But no matter which intervention is finally applied, the gap between the reached and the desired future state remains largest if no policy action is taken at all.

Sibyl Hanna Brunner and Bettina Weibel are scientific assistants at the chair of Prof. Dr. Adrienne Grêt-Regamey: Planning of Landscape and Urban Systems (PLUS)

Image: Backcasting approach applied in the MOUNTLAND project to evaluate the effectiveness of policy measures to maintain the cultural landscape.

Brunner, Sibyl Hanna; Huber, Robert; Grêt-Regamey, Adrienne (2016): A backcasting approach for matching regional ecosystem services supply and demand. Environmental Modelling & Software 75. S.439-458.

Brunner, Sibyl Hanna; Grêt-Regamey, Adrienne (2016): Policy strategies to foster the resilience of mountain social-ecological systems under uncertain global change. Environmental Science & Policy. Oxford: Elsevier Science.

Brunner, Sibyl Hanna; Grêt-Regamey, Adrienne; Huber, Robert (2017): Mapping uncertainties in the future provision of ecosystem services in a mountain region in Switzerland. In: Regional environmental change.

Share this...
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Linkedin
  • Email
This article has been published in the following newsletter edition:

33 | März 2017: Ein Blick zurück

  • Das Wissen von der Stadt
  • Die Landschaft lesen
  • Mapping Urban Ecosystem Services with Google
  • «Prof. Milica Topalovic: What is Territorial Planning?»
  • Pathways of Post-Socialist Urban Development. The Case of Budapest
  • Backcasting – Looking Backwards to Reach the Desired Future
  • Was uns historische Verkehrskarten verraten
Kurzmeldungen
  • ETH Zürich am WEF 2017 in Davos: «Magic through Technology»
  • The People’s Museum
Publikationen
  • Architecture Competition: Project Design and the Building Process.
  • Investigation of a static and a dynamic neighbourhood methodology to develop work programs for multiple close municipal infrastructure networks
  • Delta Dialogues. Heft Nr. 20 der Schriftenreihe «Pamphlet»
  • Extending Morris method for qualitative global sensitivity analysis of models with dependent inputs
  • Estimating pedestrian speed using aggregated literature data
  • Der intelligente Parkplatz: Elektronisch gesteuertes, dynamisches Preissystem

Chairs

Prof. Dr. Bryan T. Adey
Prof. Dr. Kay W. Axhausen
Prof. Dr. Tom Avermaete
Prof. Dr. Francesco Corman
Dr. Jennifer Duyne Barenstein
Prof. Teresa Galí-Izard
Prof. Christophe Girot
Prof. Dr. Adrienne Grêt-Regamey
Prof. Dr. Guillaume Habert
Prof. Dr. David Kaufmann
Prof. Hubert Klumpner
Dr. Anastasios Kouvelas
Prof. Freek Persyn
Prof. Dr. Christian Schmid
Prof. Milica Topalovic
EiR PD Dr. Joris Van Wezemael
Prof. em Dr. h. c. Günther Vogt
ETH Wohnforum – ETH CASE

Contact

Address
ETH Zürich
NSL – Netzwerk Stadt und Landschaft
Stefano-Franscini-Platz 5
HIL H 44.2
8093 Zürich

NSL Director
Director: Prof. Hubert Klumpner
Deputy Director: Prof. Dr. David Kaufmann

NSL Coordination
Claudia Gebert
Telephone: +41 (0)44 633 36 33

Register for the NSL Newsletter

disP Publication Office

Editor-in-Chief
Dr. sc. techn. Martina Koll-Schretzenmayr, Spatial planner ETH/NDS,
Telephone +41 (0)44 633 29 47

Editorial Assistant
Telephone +41 (0)44 633 29 69

Mailing address
ETH Zürich
Redaktion disP
NSL – Netzwerk Stadt und Landschaft
Stefano-Franscini-Platz 5
HIL H 33.2
8093 Zürich
Fax +41 (0)44 633 12 15
E-Mail

 

NSL Archive (gta)

Research and Bequest Archive for
Swiss Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning

Consultation Requests

Mailing address
ETH Zürich
NSL Archive (gta)
Stefano-Franscini-Platz 5
HIL C 65.2
CH-8093 Zurich