Do we have the collective will to sustain what we love about Oregon for future
generations? Each of the choices we make as a society leads us down a different
road. Do we know what direction we want to head and where we want to be 50 years
from now? Or are we on a random drive to no particular destination?
Try to imagine fitting three more Portlands or 13 more Eugenes or 95 more Woodburns
into the Willamette River Basin. If current population growth rates continue,
population experts predict that in the year 2050 there will be 4 million people
(an additional 1.7 million people) living in the Willamette River Basin, an
area of northwest Oregon stretching from the crest of the Cascade Mountains
to the top of the Coast Range and from Portland south to Cottage Grove.
Today’s oracles are researchers. With computer models and mapping technologies
they attempt to peer into the future. Here in Oregon, citizens, scientists and
planners are trying to model an array of future scenarios to help determine
where we are headed and what it will be like when we get there in the year 2050.
Since the late 1990s, a group of researchers has been generating possible views
of the future of the Willamette Basin in the year 2050. The Pacific Northwest
Ecosystem Research Consortium, PNW-ERC, a scientific team from OSU, University
of Oregon and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency facility in Corvallis,
has been using a sophisticated set of tools to project what the future Willamette
Basin environment might be like—the water, wildlife, agricultural, forest
and riparian habitats. Similar analyses could be used in any area of the state.
First, researchers recruited the help of local concerned citizens—including
farmers, foresters, developers, conservationists and public employees living
and working in the Willamette Basin. This group of "stakeholders"
designed three "scenarios" or visions of the future for the study:
(1)"Plan Trend 2050" is a future scenario where present-day policies
and land use practices in forestry, agriculture and urban development are assumed
to carry on unchanged from now until the year 2050.
(2) "Development 2050" is a future scenario where land use laws and
other environmental policies are loosened and "market forces" would
have greater influence relative to the Plan Trend.
(3)"Conservation 2050" is a future scenario where conservation and
restoration of ecological function would play a larger role in land and water
allocation decisions relative to the Plan Trend.
Then, using population forecasting, mathematical models, natural resource inventories,
land use patterns and computer mapping technologies, the researchers predicted
how the Basin might develop and change the landscape between now and the year
2050 for each of the three scenarios. Some of these forecasts are depicted as
maps, which are posted on the web in The Willamette Chronicle.
They also used mathematical models to evaluate what the consequences of these
changes might be for water availability, aquatic and terrestrial wildlife and
the Willamette River.
"Basically, we are playing a ‘what if’ game here," said
John Van Sickle, statistician with the U.S. EPA, a researcher and part of the
four-year PNW-ERC study.
"No one has a crystal ball that shows the Willamette Basin 50 years from
now. But we think that these scenarios give a plausible range of possibilities
for how the Basin’s future might unfold. Our project provides tools that
can help the people living here to start imagining the Basin’s future,
to communicate about it and to plan for it."
These 2050 maps can help planners, citizens and politicians understand where
problem areas or big changes might occur in the future—where water issues
might become critical, where rapid growth is most likely to occur, where we
have the best chance of restoring native habitat, said Linda Ashkenas, an OSU
researcher on the study.
This winter the Oregon State University Press will publish an atlas that includes
all of these scenarios and their potential consequences, as well as general
information on the Willamette Basin.
What did the scientists learn from this exercise?
"We learned from the project that if in the future we follow the assumptions
of the most strict ‘Conservation 2050’ scenario, we could then recover
some of the wildlife habitat and ecological health of streams that have been
lost over the years since the first European settlers arrived in the Basin,"
said Van Sickle.
"To make this recovery, we would have to choose to change our behavior,"
he continued. "But at least it is not too late to improve the conditions
of streams and wildlife if we, as a society, choose to."
The Conservation 2050 scenario assumes that Basin residents would give up some
options for how they live and work—urban growth boundary expansion would
be tightly controlled and some agricultural and forestry activities might be
curtailed to further protect streams, wildlife and other resources. The scenario
also assumes that riparian and upland habitats would be increased at both high
and low elevations, he said.
If we choose the status quo, to keep on as we are now with land use planning
and habitat protection, the Plan Trend 2050 scenario, the study indicates that
the Willamette Basin will lose water availability, some farmland and habitat
for fish and wildlife, he said.
And if we loosen land use and environmental protection from that of today, as
in the Development 2050 scenario, the study indicates there will be larger urban
growth boundaries, more structures and homes on rural lands, and less water,
forest and agricultural land and wildlife habitat.
Though sobering, the study projections aren’t as grim as some thought they
were going to be, he said.
"All of our scenarios assume that there will be a doubling of population
in the Basin by 2050," said Van Sickle. "But it is not likely to cause
a doubling of environmental effects relative to the changes that have occurred
since the earliest European settlers arrived."
Models, though useful tools, should be used with caution, says OSU political
science professor Bill Lunch.
"Suppose, for example, a not entirely hypothetical scenario, that Mt. Hood
becomes active again, in say 2005," said Lunch. "On the other hand,
suppose the increased cost of electric power cripples the Silicon Valley of
California and a large fraction of companies there relocate to Portland. What
would happen to the expected population growth in Portland?"
"For the near term, we need to do such work, but to be humble about our
ability to predict the future," Lunch points out. "Our experience
shows us we often can’t do it very well."