Policy design and decision criteria for sustainable water supply from the perspective of “imaginary future generations” - A deliberation experiment with policymakers in a municipality, Japan

Hara, Keishiro; Ikenaga, Taiga; Arai, Takanobu et al.

Futures, 2025, 171, 103618

Number of Access:175（2026-02-18 08:04 Counts）

Identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/11094/102202

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Title
Policy design and decision criteria for sustainable water supply from the perspective of “imaginary future generations” - A deliberation experiment with policymakers in a municipality, Japan
Creator
NRID
1000030393036 1000030393036
researchmap permalink
read0138648 read0138648
Scopus Author ID
24528571500 24528571500
ORCID
0000-0003-4329-4240 0000-0003-4329-4240
CreatorName
Hara, Keishiro
CreatorName
Ikenaga, Taiga
CreatorName
Arai, Takanobu
NRID
1000070712834 1000070712834
researchmap permalink
mangrove-asia mangrove-asia
Scopus Author ID
56596562100 56596562100
CreatorName
Fuchigami, Yukari
Subject
Decision Criteria
Future Design
Household
Imaginary Future Generations
Sustainable Management
Water Supply
Description
Hara K., Ikenaga T., Arai T., et al. Policy design and decision criteria for sustainable water supply from the perspective of “imaginary future generations” - A deliberation experiment with policymakers in a municipality, Japan. Futures 171, 103618 (2025); https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2025.103618.
Abstract
To maintain sustainable water supply systems, it is indispensable to design relevant policies with a long-term perspective. In this paper, we present a novel approach to design policies on sustainable water supply by adopting “Imaginary Future Generations (IFGs)” which has been proven effective in generating futurability of individuals. We conducted deliberation experiments focused on envisioning future water supply services and policies with the participation of employees of the Suita City Water Works Bureau and analyzed the impacts of adopting IFGs on policy design and policymaking criteria. Based on the discussion results and questionnaires administrated to the participants, we demonstrate that the perspective of IFGs could lead to producing vary different visions of water supply system in 2050 and different policy measures compared to the perspective of current generations, due mainly to the change in the decision criteria. The results show that the method could stimulate awareness of water supply use and services at the household level by citizens and the proposal of measures based on a sense of crisis about the future. We conclude that the method could facilitate more effective and flexible policy formulation aimed at realizing a sustainable water supply system from a long-term perspective by generating futurability.
Publisher
Elsevier Ltd
Source Title
Futures
Volume (Issue)
171
Page
103618
Date of Issued
2025-05-13
Language
English
Handle URL
https://hdl.handle.net/11094/102202
PISSN
00163287
Relation.isIdenticalTo
DOI (Publisher Version)
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2025.103618
Access Rights
open access
CopyRight
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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Category
学術雑誌論文 Journal Article