Formulating Regional Development Scenarios (Case Study: Mazandaran Province)

The speed of changes of geographical spaces is so high that human strength and power cannot predict it. In order to prepare for environmental changes, future studies have replaced traditional forecasting and planning techniques. Scenario planning is a technique that presents different futures by considering environmental uncertainties. This research tried to formulate future development scenarios of Mazandaran province using the scenario writing approach. Delphi method and opinions of the province's experts were used to identify the driving forces of the province's development and possible uncertainties ahead. Primary variables were defined in the framework of the cross-effect matrix in the MikMak prospective software. According to the high score of direct and indirect influences, 18 main key factors influence the future regional development of Mazandaran province. These factors were discussed in this research as the main basis for depicting possible situations and regional development scenarios of Mazandaran province. Scenario Wizard software was used to formulate the scenarios. The results showed that a total of 68 different situations were designed for 18 key factors, which included a range of favorable to unfavorable conditions. The number of situations for each factor varied between 3 and 4 depending on the complexity of the province's conditions. Totally 11 scenarios were divided into 3 groups according to their degree of desirability. Each group contains several scenarios with almost common characteristics and little difference in one or more situations among 18 key factors.