Future Proofing Model of the Sustainable Water Resource Management based on the Scenario Planning Approach- Case Study: Golestan Province

Water resources have always been the focal point of the civilizations and urbanities formation. Human societies, at the early age until now, have been initiated around these resources. Therefore the preservation of the water resources for the next generation and correct exploitation, play a crucial role in sustainability and extension of civilizations. Then, most of the experts believe that wars at the 21th century are about clean and pure water resources. In these days, because of excessive increase in environment uncertainty, the traditional planning approaches/methods have lost their usefulness. To confront these uncertainties and at the age of Cold War, scenario planning established as one of the future proofing approaches/methods. In scenario planning, against the traditional planning methods, the future has not seen as the extension of the past, on the contrary, general environmental drivers and forces form the future state of a system. Considering the uncertainities in water resource management,this article has tried to use scenario planning approach for future proofing, finding driving forces that shape the future state of water resources in the Golestan province and then determined the crucial drivers by interview with the experts of strategic management and water resource planning fields. All possible scenarios have been written and at the end, for managing water resources in stable ways, strategies and course of actions have presented.