Identify primary drivers of change

Summary

As a part of the Strategic Foresight Initiative's (SFI) scenario planning and trends analysis, SFI employs an analytical approach used commonly by organizations such as the U.S. National Intelligence Council to identify macro-level factors that have significant influence in the world. These macro-level factors fall into five dimensions—Social, Technological, Environmental, Economic, and Political (STEEP). Using this STEEP approach, the SFI community of practitioners and subject matter experts identified 9 major drivers of change (categorized along the 5 STEEP dimensions) that will likely have the most significant influence on disaster management in the U.S. over the next 20 years. These drivers include Changing Role of the Individual, Climate Change, Critical Infrastructure, Evolving Terrorist Threat, Global Interdependencies, Government Budgets, Technological Innovation and Dependency, Universal Access to and Use of Information, and US Demographic Shifts.