Spatial Scenarios With Real‐Time Spatial Delphi and Asymptotic Consensus Analysis: An Application to Ten European Coastal Cities

Recent climatic events, such as coastal erosion, floods, and elevated temperatures, threaten the planet's sustainability and thewell‐being of European coastal cities. These events are expected to increase significantly, emphasizing the urgent need forcareful analysis to inform policy development and prevent dystopian scenarios. In the Futures Studies (FS) context, thedevelopment of future scenarios is essential for depicting long‐term outcomes and facilitating effective planning, which can beachieved using various methods, including the Real‐Time Spatial Delphi. This paper applies to the Delphi‐based spatial scenario(DBSS), adopting a novel web‐based open platform, to obtain spatial convergence of opinions among a panel of experts usingspatial analysis and statistical indicators. The DBSS method was applied to 10 European coastal areas in seven differentcountries, involving 167 experts to assess climate impacts in 2050. This paper introduces for the first time, the concept ofAsymptotic Theoretical Consensus to obtain a deeper understanding of the dynamic process, including duration, smoothness ofconvergence, and stability. The identified scenarios validate the proposed method and provide significant benefits to stake-holders, policymakers, local authorities, and governmental bodies in formulating efficacious strategies and confronting thechallenges presented by climate change