Future uncertainty in scenarios of ecosystem services provision: Linking differences among narratives and outcomes

Future provision of ecosystem services (ES) has been increasingly analysed through the scenario approach to address uncertainties and to communicate them to stakeholders and decision-makers. Multiple uncertainty-related aspects of the scenario approach have been discussed in the literature, e.g. how uncertainty is accounted for in ES modelling processes. However, this contribution aims to address another uncertainty-related aspect of scenario analysis, exploring the relationship between the diversity of qualitative scenario narratives on the one hand and the diversity of their respective quantitative outcomes on the other. We build on a local-scale case study and present a semi-quantitative approach to compare scenario narratives and outcomes, based on participatory scenario planning and ES modelling. Our results show that different scenario narratives may lead to similar levels of modelled ES provision, and vice versa, that similar narratives may result in contrasting scenario outcomes. We use these findings to derive uncertainty-related insights, and discuss how these can help formulate landscape management decisions, resulting in desirable ES outcomes across a range of plausible futures. Finally, we discuss the need to apply both spatial and aspatial approaches to compare the convergence of scenario outcomes, and the implications for potential interpretation of the results by stakeholders and decision-makers.