Climate Change Visualization: Using 3D Imagery of Local Places to Build Capacity and Inform Policy

Linking global science to locally significant places with visioning processes and visualizations represents a powerful tool for decision-making in the context of climate change responses. The Local Climate Change Visioning Project in British Columbia, Canada, builds on recent advances in backcasting and scenario-building to bridge the divide between predictive, quantitative approaches and narrative-based qualitative methods. The Visioning Project incorporates novel 3D visualization techniques with elements of participatory integrated assessment to explore visions of the future under climate change for the Lower Mainland community of Delta. This study illustrates that addressing climate change in a participatory way, with credible but easily accessible visuals, and at a scale that matters to people, may be critical in building capacity for climate change action. Furthermore, this project demonstrated that compelling 3D visualizations of local climate change scenarios can be developed defensibly, despite the multi-disciplinary data/modelling needs, complexity and uncertainty involved.