Scanning the horizon for emerging environmental threats and opportunities
An overview of horizon scanning with a particular focus on climate change, biodiversity and conservation.
This part three of a three-part series on horizon scanning. The first two parts highlighted the results from an interdisciplinary horizon scan of emerging threats and opportunities from climate change we completed for Aotearoa New Zealand. This post is focused more generally on horizon scanning itself as a tool. If you enjoy it, please share it with your friends and subscribe, and please click the ❤️ button to help more people discover it.
"Being surprised by foreseeable events can be costly, as can failing to identify and exploit opportunities. A solution to avoiding such surprise is, we argue, horizon scanning."
This quote by Sutherland and Woodroof (2009) summarises the motivation behind horizon scanning — the focus of this post.
My previous two posts as part of this series showcase the results from our horizon scan of threats and opportunities to Aotearoa New Zealand from climate change1. I promised to provide a part three of the series outlining what horizon scanning actually is and what it involves. So here we are.
Why horizon scan?
Well it's as simple as the need to go eyes open into the future. Managers, practitioners and policymakers need information to act on. Without information, we're effectively flying blind into the future. All too regularly, we have failed to provide timely advice due to a lack of foresight processes like horizon scanning. This is changing, though, as you'll see in this post.
New and emerging issues challenge policymaking and decision making. Particularly problematic is when unexpected shocks arrive. Horizon scanning attempts to identify these ahead of time. They provide early indications or warnings of threats and opportunities that have so far been poorly recognised.
Sutherland and Woodroof (2009) nicely summarise the issue here:
"Policymakers and practitioners in most fields, including conservation and the environment, often make decisions based on insufficient evidence. One reason for this is that issues appear unexpectedly, when with hindsight, many of them were foreseeable. A solution to the problem of being insufficiently prepared is routine horizon scanning, which we describe as the systematic search for potential threats and opportunities that are currently poorly recognized. Researchers can then decide which issues might be most worthwhile to study. Practitioners can also use horizon scanning to ensure timely policy development and research procurement."
Such foresight approaches may have been less important in the past, but in the age of nonstationarity, we can no longer afford to not think deeply and critically about what's coming down the pike. The world is no longer operating within predictable bounds of variability. Climate change is uncovering new levels of instability and unpredictability that simply were not present 100 years ago. So we need to employ foresight techniques to keep our eyes on emerging issues on the horizon.
So, let's dive in.
What is horizon scanning?
As mentioned in the previous posts, horizon scanning is an approach used to identify potential emerging threats and opportunities. It involves a systematic outlook focused on detecting early signs. The rationale is really that the information can be used to support decision-makers in anticipating future issues, managing their risks and identifying opportunities to build resilience into systems from future shocks or uncertainties.
So, the key point of difference of horizon scanning to, say, forecasting is to look for and uncover things that are not widely known to date, nor are receiving much research attention. But also to identify them with sufficient time to allow the development of actionable solutions.
A key tenet of horizon scanning is that some issues will never fully land. This could be because of misjudging the issue or because of various other interventions. However, it could also be because of the positive impact the horizon scan has by identifying the issue early.
For ecologists, the most well known horizon scans are those led annually by Bill Sutherland since 2009. The 15th annual horizon scan of global biological conservation issues was published this year.
How does horizon scanning work?
Horizon scanning often involves a modified Delphi process, which is an iterative, anonymous participatory method that is used to gather and evaluate expert knowledge. This approach enables a group to address complex problems in a collective manner via structured communication.
The anonymous nature of the Delphi process helps to avoid four particular issues that arise from social pressures in group situations, as outlined in Mukherjee et al., (2015): 1. Groupthink, whereby people are influenced by what others in the room are discussing, particularly in relation to what the majority or the leaders are saying, in order to conform. 2. The halo effect, whereby decisions are clouded by impressions created in an unrelated area (e.g. you may rank opinions higher from people you like). 3. Egocentrism, whereby you tend to rate your own ideas higher than others. 4. Dominance, whereby the ideas of the dominant folks in the room tend to be rated higher.
To illustrate the steps involved in the process, let's look briefly at how Sutherland et al. (2024) performed theirs.
They gathered a panel of 31 scientists, practitioners, and policymakers. These participants were required to submit 2-5 issues that were "novel, largely unknown, and likely to impact biological conservation in the future". They then "canvassed their networks and colleagues in person or via email, social media platforms, and conferences, reaching over 1700 people". This process resulted in 96 submitted issues for consideration, which were then confidentially and independently reviewed and scored. Scoring was based on the issue's potential positive or negative impact on conservation and its novelty. A series of other steps were put in place to override voter fatigue and for keeping potential issues that may have been scored lower than expected. Scores were then ranked and the top 36 went to the next round. Participants were then allocated up to four of the issues to further investigate and bring to the workshop (these issues were areas with which they were not familiar). Following workshop discussions, each issue was then rescored and then ranked and the top 15 ranked issues were kept. Sometime issues are similar enough to be combined, which was done here, allowing two additional issues to be added to the list.
This is the simple overview of the process by which the main issues are selected. Following this step is when the writing stage begins.
Can horizon scans be multidisciplinary?
One of the things that makes horizon scans work so well is that they are typically focused within a disciplinary field. For instance, the Sutherland series of papers focuses on biological conservation. This bounding helps to reach consensus among the participants because everyone in the room is an expert in the broader field allowing voting with confidence across all submitted issues. Resulting issues can still be broad, as shown in the Sutherland et al. series. For instance, the 2024 horizon scan uncovered issues as diverse as new sources of hydrogen for energy production, decarbonised ammonia production, acceleration of light-free artificial photosynthesis with indoor agriculture, wildfires affecting climate oscillations, and melting Antarctic ice affecting deep sea ocean currents.
They even highlight the issues associated with the development of NEOM (The Line) linear skyscraper city for migratory bird populations. (Side note, this thing is nuts — you have to check it out.)
But that's the whole point — to look for things that aren't on the radar of many but have the potential to have major impacts. The Line is massive (500 m high, 200 m wide, and 170 km long) and has the potential to house 9 million people. As they note "...the magnitude of The Line may pose a novel threat to the Eastern populations of the estimated 2.1 billion migratory birds of >100 species that migrate from Europe to Africa in autumn each year, for which this area forms a bottleneck, with downstream ecological consequences. No environmental impact assessment has yet been published, and site preparation has already commenced." Collisions with buildings are a major source of mortality in migratory birds, killing an estimated 365–988 million birds annually in the US alone.
On the other hand, when your topic is highly multidisciplinary, it is much harder to reach consensus because folks are voting on issues outside of their expertise. This doesn't undermine the process, but does raise challenges. For our climate change horizon scan for NZ, we explicitly focused on cross-disciplinary issues, and as a result, we had social scientists, economists, policy experts, indigenous scholars and many others in our group.
This also raises a key question about the role of the experts in the room. Does the selection of experts bias the topics raised or the prioritisation of topics? According to Sutherland et al. (2019), it appears not to. However, it is always going to depend on the nature of the specific horizon scan in terms of the breadth of topic and what the desired outcome is.
Do horizon scans work?
For simplicity's sake, let's stick with the series of global biological conservation horizon scans. Sutherland first started this annual series in 2009, which presents an opportunity to look back on what has happened since. In their ten-year retrospective, they found that:
"Five of the 15 issues identified have shown a major increase in importance since 2009. Six other issues appear to have developed to a moderate extent. The proportion of conservation organisations working on nine of the identified topics has increased, but for six topics has decreased.”
Yet, it is difficult to directly attribute anything to the horizon scan itself due to a wide number of potentially confounding factors. Still, it's clear that there are certainly cases where horizon scans have been important in identifying issues early that have gone onto to allow researchers and policymakers to be better prepared.
Before we wrap up, let's briefly look at the outcomes of a recent foresight report on planetary health and human wellbeing.
A global foresight report on planetary health and human wellbeing
A recent report out from the United Nations Environment Programme focused on the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste, combined with other key drivers of change, including social, technological, geopolitical, and AI, among many others.
It is clear that we are facing a 'polycrisis', where the triple planetary crisis is impacting and exacerbating human crises like conflicts for resources and declining health. Taking such a holistic view is important for understanding the whole situation.
The report, titled "Navigating New Horizons: A global foresight report on planetary health and human wellbeing" used horizon scanning as part of its wider methodology to focus on identifying emerging issues globally that could affect planetary health and human wellbeing.
Similar to our climate change horizon scan, this report drew on a wide diversity of disciplines and voices to foresee the future. It identified old and emerging challenges that require immediate attention and have the potential to drastically impact planetary health. Specifically, eight critical global shifts or phenomena emerged from the foresight process:
The relationship between humans and the environment in flux
Critical resources: scarcity, competition and the shifting dynamics of global security
AI, digital transformation and technology – a wave of change
A new era of conflict
Mass forced displacement and migration
Persistent and widening inequalities
Misinformation, declining trust, and polarization
Polycentricity and diffusion of governance
So, as you can see, the issues are broad and emerging. You'll need to dive into the report for more information on what these issues are. But, the report also focused on solutions. As they state:
"Adopting agile and reflexive governance—with shorter-term time-bound targets to enable course correction combined with multi-layered monitoring at the UN level—would significantly enhance achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Placing a new global emphasis on wellbeing metrics rather than pure economic growth will help the transformation needed. The future must be consultative, multilateral, cooperative and integrate the voices of traditionally marginalised groups, including women, youth, local communities and Indigenous Peoples."
Summary
There you have it. I hope that provided a bit of a window into the world of horizon scanning. It is a key tool in a world that is rapidly changing, where threats and opportunities are arising frequently. We cannot afford to continue to bury our heads in the sand. Instead, we need to be proactively scanning the horizon. Previous horizon scans in environmental fields have identified critical issues that have helped to forewarn about future threats or direct research into emerging areas of need.
Of course, horizon scanning will only ever be as useful as the action that follows it. As a scientific community, we continue to provide robust evidence of issues on the horizon only for a complete lack of action to follow by those in positions of power. It's imperative that such information is acted upon.
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This paper emerged from a workshop led by Cate MacInnis-Ng and Will Godsoe funded by Te Pūnaha Matatini, a Centre of Research Excellence in New Zealand.
I am working on an application that combines both AI/cloud based systems with human analysts and experts to do horizon scanning at the individual level - horizon scanning as a service if you will, would anyone on this thread be interested in taking a look at the system? and provide feedback?
Another great article Jono. I like the anonymous idea of the Delphi process, that's thinking outside the box. Your comment on horizon scanning only being useful if action follows it is very apt. We can only live in hope.