A landscape-based vision with climate change adaptation underlying urban development: Engaging decision-makers through visioning in the Metropolitan Area Arnhem–Nijmegen

ABSTRACT There is growing attention that a long-term perspective should be taken in water management and spatial planning to anticipate future climatic conditions. Long-term visions and visioning processes are known to be useful for guiding long-term change and to rethink existing practices, yet coupling futures-thinking with mainstream decision-making remains a challenge, and there are still few tested visioning methods. Here, we develop and apply a method for landscape-based visioning, using as a case study a region encompassing a metropolitan area as well as The Netherlands' main river division point: the Green Metropolitan Region Arnhem–Nijmegen. Our visioning process commenced with a joint definition of the underlying approach, followed by a landscape analysis to characterize the natural system of the region, a series of design workshops to iteratively design a vision, and a synthesis phase to pinpoint key spatial choices in the region. The long-term vision highlights the opportunities and challenges that will be encountered when putting the natural system at the basis of spatial planning. The findings also indicate that visioning can be used to engage decision-makers in meaningful conversations about making climate change action an underlying premise for future urban development.