Abstract
Food systems are shaped by agricultural and commercial land uses and activities that define where and how food is produced and accessed. These systems are linked to multiple critical sustainability issues, such as climate change, environmental degradation, and growing socioeconomic inequalities, and there is a clear need for transformative change in how food is produced and accessed. For transformations to occur, local government and stakeholders must be able to consider achievable and desirable futures that involve radically different reconfigurations of space and land use. Absent this imaginative capacity, communities and societies are without direction for decision-making that can move food systems beyond just incremental changes. Based in the community of Revelstoke, Canada, this study uses interactive visualization and workshop methods to engage local government and food systems stakeholders in an exploration of three future food systems scenarios, which center (respectively) on changes in food supply, food affordability, and food governance. An interactive visualization tool was developed using the Unity3D game engine, and it visualizes how transformations of an inactive railway site in Revelstoke may appear in 2100. The visualizations were presented to the study participants through an online, Zoom-based workshop, where ‘walk throughs’ of the scenarios were done by the researchers and the participants subsequently provided feedback. The results of the study reveal the opportunities and challenges of developing and using visualization tools to building imaginative capacity in communities with respect to reconfiguring food spaces and transforming food systems in ways that contribute to social justice and sustainability objectives.
Presenters
Robert NewellCanada Research Chair, School of Environment and Sustainability, Royal Roads University, British Columbia, Canada Colin Dring
Researcher, School of Environment and Sustainability, Royal Roads University, British Columbia, Canada
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Food Production and Sustainability
KEYWORDS
Food systems, Scenario planning, Interactive visualizations, Stakeholder engagement, Land use
