Swarm planning for climate change: An alternative pathway for resilience

Swarm planning is a theory and practical approach to deal with uncertain futures. By anticipating scenarios such as a 'post-carbon' world and a 'pre-adaptive' landscape, it offers an alternative pathway to prepare for medium-term incremental and step changes. The focus is on the regional scale with a planning process to move from an unstable state (i.e. due to external impacts of climate change) towards a state of higher adaptive capacity. It increases the flexibility of spatial systems in two ways: assisting change in spatial land use over time; and catalysing the emergence of autonomous and more resilient developments.