Visualising, Illustrating and Communicating Future Water Visions to Support Learning and Sustainability Transitions
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Co-Creation Methodology
- a rapid scoping review [20] and co-development workshops with participants (the project team, comprising the seven authors—representing stakeholders with diverse levels of prior knowledge and technical skills) on key concepts, principles and approaches identified in the science discourse, such as systems thinking and analysis; management change; circular economy principles; regenerative methods; water–energy–food nexus; polycentric governance; co-creation; shared values; the Three Horizons Framework; scenario planning and policy mapping; Systems Innovation Approach; future visioning, future-scaping, envisioning, transition pathways, adaptive pathways and the ‘what if’ approach; forecasting and backcasting; bioregional planning; landscape frameworks and optioneering; and communication and pedagogy [17,20,23,29,31,32,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61];
- synthesis of this material into provisional scenarios based on axes of econo-centric to eco-centric and technology for private good to technology for public good;
- co-development by project team participants of a visualisation ‘architecture’ framework to accommodate visual and narrative description of elaborative content and synthesis;
- co-development by project team participants of conceptual and technical designs for the illustrations and supporting information;
- co-development by project team participants plus two additional collaborators of interactive content with links to supporting resources;
- co-delivery by project team participants of initial ‘pilot testing’ to high-level audiences and a formal launch to wider audiences (people across a wider range of specialisations, sectors and positions) through which to refine the demonstration platform.
- Landscape 1 (L1)—‘unsustainable’;
- Landscape 2 (L2)—‘in transition’;
- Landscape 3 (L3)—‘regenerative sustainability’;
- Landscape 4 (L4)—’regenerative utopia/transformed’ (wireframe).
- Co-defining the system and timescales: sub-systems, capitals (natural, built, socio-economic), features and actions;
- Assessing and visualising system services (services provided by capitals) and nexus outcomes (‘benefits’);
- Co-production of illustrations, messages and narrative content.
2.1. Co-Defining the System and Timescales: Sub-Systems, Capitals, Features and Actions
- A workshop to brainstorm the visualisation of sustainable landscapes—to collate knowledge, references, examples, images, diagrams, ideas and suggestions on perspectives, approaches, frameworks, tools, innovations, features, etc. to include in the visualisation platform;
- A workshop to undertake scenario and policy mapping—to map out existing policy and suggest potential future policy requirements for three integrated scenarios/horizons/visions [20] along a timeline up to 2050-80 (or ‘open’), covering policy, governance and society and identifying barriers to change at the micro and macro scale;
- A workshop to determine landscapes 1 and 2 feature label allocation, messaging and narrative development tasks—agreeing on label length, content and convention was crucial to ensure consistency in the visualisation platform textual content to enable ease of recognition, association and navigation during the user experience;
- A workshop to explore landscape 3 features and undertake sharing, monitoring and evaluation planning—to brainstorm ideas for a landscape representing transformation/transition (i.e., including full implementation across the SETS of regenerative, circular, nexus approaches, etc.).
2.2. Assessing and Visualising System Services and Nexus Outcomes (‘Benefits’)
2.3. Co-Production of Illustrations, Messages and Narrative Content
3. User Journey
- As a resource to support fully guided webinar presentations with pre-set narratives or ‘user journeys’ through the use of slide decks.
- As a resource to support a hybrid—part-guided, part self-exploratory—live online session.
- As a resource to support an entirely self-guided session through a user-led journey.
- Landing page—Welcome video, introduction, user guide and landscapes 1-4;
- Landscape 1—Landscape 1: visualisation of an unsustainable scenario landscape;
- Landscape 1—Overall scenario landscape description and scenario wheels;
- Landscape 1—Zone: agriculture; feature: livestock sheds;
- Landscape 2—Visualisation and description for landscape 2: in transition;
- Landscape 2—Landscape 2: in transition wheels;
- Landscape 2—Zone: agriculture; feature: livestock sheds;
- Landscape 2—Zone: agriculture description, list of features and wheels;
- Landscape 2—Zone: agriculture; feature: animal waste digestor descriptions;
- Landscape 2—Zone: agriculture; feature: animal waste digestor wheels;
- Landscape 3—Visualisation of regenerative sustainability;
- Landscape 3—Description and wheels.
- (optional step of considering landscape 4 wireframe)
- a swipe animation from landscape 1 to landscape 3;
- a simple animation illustrating the reimagining of wastewater treatment plants as circular ‘bioresource centres’ operating across the nexus;
- downloadable illustrations, for instance, for developing bespoke user journeys.
4. Preliminary Evaluation
- General—thanks and praise.
- Navigation—comments of contrasting experiences (‘not clear’ versus ‘really strong’).
- Visuals/platform—positive comments on the illustrations. Questions about style and framings.
- Futures—comments on portrayals being realistic and positive. One comment suggesting L3 is too eco-technical, was reassured that socio-eco-tech framings would be more explored with users is L4.
- Video/animation/sound—suggestion for better use of sound.
- Wheels—generally positive comments though clarity needed on scale and method (qualitative).
- Technical information—questions about particular items.
- Audience/users—suggestions on tailoring for different users. Impact tracking.
- Learning—what users had taken away, from reflection to thinking about forward-looking approaches (systems; nexus) and transformation, as well as competencies and capabilities needed for sustainable futures.
- Glitching—pop-up box errors that required user refreshing.
- co-create, among a small project team, an interactive demonstration platform through which to explore illustrations and narrative visions of the future underpinned by an extensive evidence synthesis, as well as real-world examples of the ‘art of possible’ and ‘pockets of the future in the present’ (through zones and features);
- co-develop, among a small project team, illustrations of future regenerative, sustainable, resilient, shared and socially just landscapes to showcase and communicate evidence-based material in relation to sustainability transitions with a focus on water;
- provide a robust platform for further information collation, organisation, communication and deliberation.
- providing accessible, inclusive visualisations and other supporting content to enable stakeholders with highly diverse levels of prior knowledge and technical skills to engage with and co-develop a shared vision for future SETS landscapes.
5. Conclusions
5.1. Conclusions
- The co-creation process outlined provides a useful starting framework for further visualisation, illustration and communication projects;
- Scenarios were an effective way to organise and synthesise scoping review findings into coherent landscape, ‘zone’ and ‘system’ visuals and narratives;
- Scenarios were an effective but static way to demonstrate transition from unsustainable practices to more sustainable practices;
- Visualisation of evidence was an effective engagement, communication and learning tool for these coherent scenarios for the targeted audiences;
- An interactive platform supports the linking of real-world examples to the illustrated contents. This is essential to communicate to more operationally-focused decision makers who need to see examples;
- Not all concepts and principles are easy to visualise or illustrate in the landscapes (e.g., systems, regenerative, circularity and nexus approaches). Therefore, other means are needed such as narrative, animation and links to other resources. Further co-development with a wider range of audiences is required to understand additional suitable approaches/formats/media for such abstract concepts;
- Additionally, further co-development of the platform would also benefit from a more complete evaluation of its features and performance, in the spirit of co-learning and co-development that is central to this endeavour.
5.2. Recommendations
- When working collaboratively on co-design and co-creation, ensure significant time is allocated to workshopping and conceptual elucidation;
- Ensure that interfaces such as the platform are built using standard software to enable onward collaboration and updating where possible;
- The platform should be further tested and co-created with a wider set of audiences;
- The platform landscapes L1–L3 should be further populated with new findings and examples that are in the content organiser but could not be included during the project duration;
- Explanation of concepts and principles could be co-developed further through narrative, animation, audio and other examples;
- The L4 wireframe should be used for (i) co-developing short-term acceptable/fundable generic or place-based scenario programmes of work using L3 as a ‘pull’; (ii) co-developing a place-based, long-term ambition scenario; (iii) co-developing a more transformational scenario than L3.
Author Contributions
Funding
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Framing for Compliance-Orientated Regime (Unsustainable; L1) | Framing for Regenerative Sustainability (Futures); L2 and L3 | Actions/Potential for Influence (for Existing Decision Makers); L2 and L3 | Real-World Example/s and Representation in Visualisation Platform (e.g., L2 Zones/Features; L3, e.g., in ‘Interconnected System’) |
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Focus on problems, symptoms and some consequences | Focus on problems, systemic interactions and causes | Collaborative ‘upstream’ (at-source) regenerative and sustainable multi-objective systems-focused interventions | Natural systems/capitals, infrastructure systems/capitals (natural and built), social systems/capitals (social and cultural) as various landscape features (see ‘features list’ in the platform) |
Focus on mitigation, degenerative and non-resilient approaches siloed working with disjointed governance, | Focus on circular, resilient, regenerative approaches across nexus sub-systems (water, food energy, waste, transport, etc.) with polycentric governance |
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Neo-liberal (private good, profit driven), technocratic, unjust and unhealthy with limited understanding of negative unintended consequences | Socially just (public good, shared value driven), democratic, healthy and transparent with understanding of risks and trade-offs management |
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Non-evaluative and unadaptive, lags behind current thinking and science | Evaluative and adaptive, keeps up with and drives current thinking and science (innovation) |
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System Services (Wheel) | Nexus Outcomes (Wheel) |
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# | Criteria | Achieved? | How? |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Promotes understanding of futures thinking as being imperfect and exploratory | To an extent | Introductory, disclaimer and item description texts cover this in their narratives |
2 | Explores a particular question | Yes | The question/aim is provided in the introduction/welcome |
3 | Grounds thinking in data and trends whilst recognising creative thinking and distinguishing between objective facts and imaginative visions | Yes | Evidence-based [19], which underpins narratives with imaginative illustrations to support creative thinking |
4 | Uses ‘What? So what? Now what?’ questions to explore impacts and include next steps, time frames, impact severity and interconnections | To an extent | Benefit wheels provide the ‘so what’, potential impacts and interconnectivity, guiding next steps and time frames for consideration |
5 | Uses narratives and storytelling for visualisation | Yes—though needs more social narratives | Illustrated landscapes, zones, systems and features are accompanied by a textual narrative, which weaves a wider story |
6 | Asks the audience how they want to be communicated with. The language, content and format(s) should be audience specific and understood from the outset | To an extent | Methodology includes co-creation to embed these aspects—proof-of-concept platform language, content and format are for high-level stakeholder audiences. Would need adapting to other audiences in collaboration with them |
7 | Recognises uncertainty and tipping points | To an extent | Narratives are framed using uncertainty and multiple illustrations indicate there is no set future. Tipping points are shown in wheels and illustrations and communicated in narratives |
8 | Clearly defined purpose, aim and objectives | Yes | The question/aim is provided in the introduction/welcome |
9 | Strategic and evidence-based, with links to the evidence embedded to provide accuracy and legitimacy | Yes | Evidence-based [19], with links to the evidence embedded in the clickable pop-ups (journal papers, reports, websites, videos, animations, images, podcasts) |
10 | Current and future scenarios, as well as a variety of scenarios | To an extent | L1—current, L2 and L3—futures, L4—co-creatable wireframe |
11 | Accessibility/easily accessible, including software used | In parts | Heavily biased towards Microsoft Office 365, as this tends to be industry standard in the country of origin (UK), but could be substituted with other preferred software. Textual narratives need audio versions embedded and other adaptations accommodated |
12 | Includes a user guide | Yes | User guide provided on website and landing page of platform |
13 | Zoom-in ability (similar to ‘virtual globe’) | To an extent | Illustrations decrease in scale to facilitate zooming. Additional zoom-in capabilities would be useful for individual illustrations, which is not possible within ThingLink |
14 | Interactive view and explore function | Yes | Clickable pop-ups and navigation icons provide interaction and explore functions |
15 | Easily navigable | Mostly | Navigation is via click and go, which is familiar to most audiences |
16 | Easy to interpret/understand | To an extent | Format follows standard protocols, content is designed to avoid cognitive overload (short text boxes, etc.) but does require certain prior knowledge and skills to interact with the visuals, information and resources |
17 | Clear visuals (e.g., text/pixel size), assumptions, limitations and methods | Yes | Appropriate font sizes and image resolution. Disclaimers provided |
18 | Includes spatial and policy aspects | Yes | Spatial element provided through use of landscapes, zones and systems; policy elements contained within narratives |
19 | Media in a variety of formats to engage users | Yes | Links out to journal papers, reports, websites, videos, animations, images, podcasts and others. Suited to target audience but would need tailoring to other audiences |
20 | Cost/benefit/trade-off/performance information | Yes | Benefit wheels and narrative elements in pop-ups |
21 | Supports stakeholder engagement | To an extent | Co-created amongst a group of stakeholders and can be used as a stakeholder engagement tool via guided workshops |
22 | Facilitates reflection | To an extent | Supports ‘what if’ thinking, which is inherently reflexive, though could embed more queues and signposting for this |
23 | Enables co-development/co-creation | To an extent | Co-created amongst stakeholders, L4 specifically included for co-creation/workshopping and platform can be further co-developed as is fully reconfigurable though certain skill sets required |
24 | Supports learning (including social learning) | To an extent | Enables users to acquire and apply new knowledge; can bring together multiple users to share and learn together. Additional accessibility and audience versions required for learning with a wider range of users |
25 | Supports online/workshop collaboration | Yes | Parallel exploration possible and L4 specifically included for co-creation/workshopping |
26 | Empowers decision making at a range of levels | To an extent | Enables users to compare and consider a range of interventions and actions—but only if they are open to exploration |
27 | Opportunity for face-to-face support (e.g., through knowledge brokers) | Yes | Authors can provide support or train others to provide support |
28 | Is useful and satisfies users’ needs | To an extent | Indicated through co-creation process and user feedback |
29 | Climate change is framed as a phenomenon personally relevant to the target audience | To an extent | Yes, includes individual-scale interventions and actions, though more of these needed |
30 | Communication on risks and impacts resonates with local practices, values, concerns and previous experiences | To an extent | Narratives are grounded in the local (though currently context-specific to UK), though more of these needed |
31 | Communication provides opportunities to explore impacts by oneself | Yes | Self-guided user journey option |
32 | Information is transparent: uncertainties are made understandable and are visualised to appear credible | Yes | All narratives, wheels and pop-ups are framed in this way |
33 | Information is not over-simplified | Yes | Narratives and media are clear and use explicit rather than simple language, with social language rather than academic language (though a lot of technical language) with definitions provided where needed and in a glossary, and a list of features for support |
34 | Not only fearful messages are spread | Yes | Message framings and narratives are realistic but optimistic and hopeful |
35 | Information relates to established implementation barriers | Yes | Evidence-based barriers are framed appropriately |
36 | Communication presents clear options and lists of alternative adaptation measures to choose from | To an extent | Clickable item menus and list of features clearly convey options. There are more options illustrated than clickable features currently available due to project duration. Future phases aim to increase the number of clickable items |
37 | Communication on actions is tailored to the needs and objectives of the target audience and relates to everyday concerns | Yes | Everyday concerns are articulated through features that work less well (L1) and work better (L2, L3) at different scales for a range of audiences |
38 | Adaptation options are visualised | Yes | Illustrations, imagery and multi-media. There are more options illustrated than clickable features currently available due to project duration. Future phases aim to increase the number of clickable items |
39 | It is clear how individual adaptative responses can make a difference | To an extent | Through benefit wheels and narratives, there are more options illustrated than clickable features currently available due to project duration. Future phases aim to increase the number of clickable items |
40 | Communication enhances engagement and discussion among users | To an extent | User feedback indicates the platform is being used to communicate future water vision interventions and action within and amongst different groups |
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© 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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Ward, S.; Forrow, D.; Kirk, S.; Worthington, R.; Paling, N.; Stacey, F.; Brunt, O. Visualising, Illustrating and Communicating Future Water Visions to Support Learning and Sustainability Transitions. Water 2024, 16, 14. https://doi.org/10.3390/w16010014
Ward S, Forrow D, Kirk S, Worthington R, Paling N, Stacey F, Brunt O. Visualising, Illustrating and Communicating Future Water Visions to Support Learning and Sustainability Transitions. Water. 2024; 16(1):14. https://doi.org/10.3390/w16010014
Chicago/Turabian StyleWard, Sarah, Dave Forrow, Stuart Kirk, Roger Worthington, Nick Paling, Freya Stacey, and Oakley Brunt. 2024. "Visualising, Illustrating and Communicating Future Water Visions to Support Learning and Sustainability Transitions" Water 16, no. 1: 14. https://doi.org/10.3390/w16010014