Climate Change Impacts on Environmental Protection at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: A Horizon Scan

Climate change impacts and responses (e.g., mitigation, adaptation) affect human health and the environment and are part of complex, nonlinear systems spanning social, technological, environmental, economic, and political domains. The complexity, uncertainty, and long-term timeframes of these systems call for anticipatory approaches to planning and conducting science that informs protection of human health and the environment. The Office of Research and Development (ORD) at the United States Environmental Protection Agency conducted a pilot horizon scan to (1) identify emerging trends and signals of climate change impacts on environmental protection to inform ORD strategic research planning and (2) advance ORD’s capacity and methods to integrate strategic foresight into research planning. The horizon scanning team developed 12 diverse signals through scoping the topic’s boundaries and domains, environmental scanning of internal and external perspectives, signal definition, and iterative signal narrowing. The team also identified indicators of change for ORD to track over the near- and long-term. This pilot built strategic foresight capacity within ORD and highlighted considerations for integrating horizon scanning into ORD’s culture and processes, including formalizing the activity as an ongoing component of strategic research planning, further capacity building, and regular evaluation and reporting of intermediate results and impact.