Application of a spatially explicit backcasting model: A case study of sustainable development in Salzburg, Austria

The high cost of land for housing within urban centres and the common desire to live within extensive residential areas in the green countryside have, in some cases, led to increasing residential development in the urban hinterland, often resulting in dispersed and sprawling development. In order to counteract such development this article seeks to provide a methodology for implementing strategies which aim is to achieve sustainable development in spatial planning. The proposed methodology, which is known as “backcasting”, aims to improve our ability to avoid undesirable future developments and to encourage those developments that are desirable. Backcasting has previously mostly been used within theoretical processes or frameworks. The backcasting exercise presented in this paper used a Python-based model to create often visionary future scenarios based on interviews with relevant experts, and then used these scenarios as input for a backwards running model. This model simulates a development that runs backwards in time, converging towards the present situation. The backcasting model presented herein has been applied to a case study in Salzburg, Austria.