A gaming exercise to explore problem-solvingversus relational activities for river floodplain management

J oanna Stefanska 1 , Piotr Magnuszewski 1 , J an Sendzimir 2, Patrycja Romaniuk 1 ,

Tharsi Taillieu 5, Anna Dubel 1 ,2, Zsuzsanna Flachner 3, Peter Balogh 4

1 Centre for Systems Solutions, Wroclaw, Poland2 International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria3 Research Institute for Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry ofHungarian Academy of

Sciences, Budapest, Hungary4 Association for Living Tisza, Hungary5 University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

Corresponding author: Piotr Magnuszewski, Centre for Systems Solutions, Parkowa 46/1 , 51 -61 6 Wroclaw,

Poland, e-mail: piotr.magnuszewski@crs.org.pl, phone: +48 71 3459284

Abstract

This paper describes a new gaming tool that allows players (e.g. water managers

and farmers) to explore the consequences of their interactions in managing ri-

ver-floodplains. To facilitate the process of creating and testing new policies that

would help to accommodate disordering events, e.g. floods, we developed a sys-

tem dynamics model of floodplain agriculture that drives an interactive game.

The Floodplain Management Game can be used as an educational resource,

knowledge elicitation technique or transition management tool concerning

agriculture and river management. The key feature of this game is that it unites

technical (problem-solving) and relational issues in one game.   Without excep-

tion, in multiple venues it has proven a useful tool for participants to experience

the challenges of policy-making for managing rivers as well as for floodplain

agriculture and for scientists to examine how stakeholders make decisions about

such options.

Keywords: simulation games, floodplains, adaptive management, social learning , com-

munications laboratory

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the NeWater project (New Approaches to Adaptive Water Manage-

ment under Uncertainty, Contract no 511179 (GOCE)), the SCENES project (Water Scenarios for

Europe and for Neighbouring States, Contract no 036822 (GOCE)) and the PSI-connect project

(Policy Science Interactions: connecting science and policy through innovative knowledge bro-

kering, Contract no 226915 (GOCE)).

Introduction

Alternative Management Regimes

Floods and droughts are unpredictable factors that make life uncertain for natural and social com-

munities in river basins. Since the Industrial Revolution, river management policy has handled that

uncertainty by controlling river flows with storage reservoirs as buffers against water scarcity and

dikes and drainage canals to protect society’s assets (industry, habitation and farmland) against flood

damage. Eventually, the continued investment to repair flood damage and bolster the dikes transfor-

med the initial vision of productive industrial expansion into the River Defense Paradigm (RDP) (Sen-

dzimir et al. 2010). The RDP successfully justified more than a century of intensive river engineering,

but it is now challenged by feedbacks from its accumulating ‘side’ effects. The feedbacks challenging

the RDP are clearly evident in the Hungarian reaches of the Tisza River Basin (HTRB). Not only do all

ecological, economic and socio-cultural indicators decline, but flood crises in the late 1990s severely

undermined the credibility of river engineering dikes and canals to sustainably defend against high

water emergencies (Werners, Matczak & Flachner, 2009, 2010; Werners et al. 2009; Sendzimir et al.,

2007, 2008, 2010). The potential for climate change to increase the frequency and severity of extreme

weather events makes this new challenge urgent: how will European river valleys adapt to future so-

urces ofuncertainty?

Alternative strategies developed overthe past two decades aim to increase adaptive capacity by ope-

ning the dikes and using the floodplains to store floodwaters. These strategies emerge from a diffe-

rent way to frame (sensu Dewulf et al, 2007) the functioning of river valleys: the Working Landscape

Paradigm (Sendzimir et al., 2010). This paradigm envisions river valleys not as arenas for industrial

production but as landscapes that work to deliver ecosystem services such as floodwater storage,

groundwater recharge, water quality maintenance, ambient air temperature management, local ra-

infall recycling, fisheries, fruit and nut production (Sendzimir and Flachner, 2007). However, the in-

herent complexity of the working landscape makes policy-making particularly difficult, as it requires

coordination and communication between many different stakeholders. The Role Playing Game pre-

sented here– the Floodplain Management Game – has been developed as a tool to “test-drive” the

process of transition to a new management regime.

This article is structured as follows. First the alternative ideas of restoring river-floodplain connecti-

vity inherent in the Working Landscape Paradigm are described. Then simulation games are briefly

introduced as tools for learning and change. The ways in which games can invoke relational and pro-

blem-solving activities as part of learning processes are then described. The case studies, observatio-

nal protocols and rules of the Floodplain Management Game are described in more detail, followed by

detailed descriptions of the relational and problem-solving activities observed in participant beha-

viors in preliminary tests of the game. The implications for the FMG as a tool for learning about dif-

ferent management regimes and for the study of relational and problem-solving activities are then

discussed as part of comparison of the FMG with other games. Finally a summary of the FMG’s key in-

novations and of the salient participant behaviors concludes the article.

River-Landscape Connectivity

Late 20th century flood crises in the Tisza River valley (Figure 1) created a volatile environmental and

social context for the development of the Floodplain Management Game1. This area in Hungary has

been affected by severe floods of increasing volume and frequency in the past 15 years (Sendzimir et

al., 2007, Koncsos and Balogh, 2007).

Figure 1 . Topological scheme of the Tisza river basin in Central Europe, the largest tributary of Danube.

Accelerating since the original Vásárhely Plan in 1870, Hungary’s policy response to flood danger was

to wall in the river channel within a system of dikes 4500 kilometers in length that reduced the area

of active floodplain by 90 percent (Figure 2).

By the late 20th century the credibility of the massive river defense scheme began to be undermined

by a series of increasingly severe flood crises. (Koncsos and Balogh, 2007). As uncertainty increased

about the dependability of the current river management regime, a shadow network (sensu Olsson et

al. 2006) of scientists, activists, and local authorities formed in order to search for new approaches

and, eventually, effective solutions based on the extended knowledge about the mutual relations be-

1 The game is available for anyone to experiment with upon written request to the authors.

Figure 2. Different landscape mosaic patterns in the Tisza river floodplain both pre- (a) and

post- (b) execution of the original Vásárhelyi river engineering plan in 1 871 . (with permission

from Siposs and Kiss 2002 WWF Hungary)

tween the river and its social and biological surroundings (Sendzimir et al., 2007, Werners et al.,

2009). These ideas were inspired by the network’s review of historical landscape mosaic patterns in

the pre-engineered Tisza and by experiments in allowing rivers to flow (and flood) freely into the

floodplain. These experiments have been conducted in the Netherlands, spawning the ‘Room for the

River’ program (Wiering and Arts, 2006) and along the Elbe river in Germany (Huang et al., 2007, Lin-

denschmidt, Huang & Baborowski., 2008). More than a century of living behind the dikes in the Tisza

floodplain did much to reinforce the defensive attitude towards floods (Vari, Linnerooth-Bayer & Fe-

rencz, 2003). The challenge for the shadow network since 1997 has been whether the awareness he-

ightened by recent flood crises can be usefully focused on experimenting with alternative policies for

sustainable co-existence “with the river.”

Figure 3. Schematic and cross-sectional views of the Tisza river channel and floodplain comparing of

conventional (a) and alternative (b) management policies. (illustration courtesy of Peter Balogh) .

a ) Dikes – defense against the river b) Water Distribution System – living

with the river

The conventional management model (Figure 3a) rigidly maintains a ‘dry floodplain’ policy by isola-

ting the river with dikes and draining the floodplain with canals. This works most of the time, though

water does seep up from below to damage crops each year (“water stagnation”) with damages re-

aching millions of forints each year (Werners et al., 2009). However, when extreme floods eventually

break through, then the higher water elevation and velocity cause extensive damage. In the alterna-

tive model (Figure 3b) flooding does not harm but actually benefits appropriateland uses, e.g. alter-

native agro-forestry and fishery land uses, on a floodplain frequently connected to the river. The

former allows intensive production (industry and grain) while the latter only permits extensive pro-

duction (fisheries, agro-forestry, cattle grazing).

The way to experimentally develop such integrated water and land management policies is barred

not only by the historical defensive attitude but by many other factors (see Sendzimir et al., 2010, Ta-

ble 1), especially the challenge to cooperatively learn and apply new agricultural and water practices.

Launching such experiments requires cooperation, broader (full basin) horizons, and long-term thin-

king. Such alternative perspectives about floodplain management have gained acceptance at national

and regional levels, but only to a limited extent.

Games as Tools for Learning and Change

The vulnerability of river basins to climate is yet another example of policy failure resulting from

over-reliance on a narrow base of ideas and information. These failures often result from excessive

dependence on biophysical data and inadequate appreciation of the diversity of ways decisions are

made at all levels of society. Policy resistance (Sterman, 2000) was the frequent, tragic result, rever-

sing initial successes with policy failure, as is the case with reactive strategies failing to address flood

crises in the HTRB. However, understanding and analysis of complex policy issues is often hampered

by the high costs of gathering data about how various members of society actually think and decide

about such issues. Similarly, without undertaking any real risks to themselves, scientists and policy

makers often must invest years to gain experience critical to managing systems that change and evo-

lve (Sterman, 1994). This raises the question: Can we lower the costs of learning through experience?

Two methods have shown promise in speeding learning by simulating complex management dilem-

mas either with formal computer models (microworlds) or play acting the roles critical to the success

or failure ofpolicy (role-playing games).

Microworlds (Papert, 1980) are computer-based interactive learning environments that have proven

highly successful in military (flight simulators for test pilots) and business (management flight simu-

lators) applications. Because it is experienced as something that feels real, more information is reta-

ined, learning is faster, and an intuition is gained about how to make real decisions. The

sophistication of the approach allows even non-trained actors to engage in highly complex decisions.

Such microworlds have proven successful in enabling lay people to consider the complexities of esta-

blishing a business, for example farmers in Poland (Martin et al., 2007). Microworlds have also been

successfully applied in environmental and resource issues (Cavana & Ford, 2004), sustainable fisheries

(Meadows, Fiddaman & Shannon, 1989), management of reindeer rangelands (Moxnes, 2004) as well

as work on sustainability in the forestry supply chain (Jones, Seville & Meadows, 2002).

For the purpose of this article, we consider Role Playing Games as games in which players are acting

given parts in a staged, imaginary context. Players can thus experiment with their behaviors in a re-

latively safe, artificial (imaginary) environment (Barreteau, Bouquet &Attonaty, 2001). Such games

have proven acceptable to players as good schematic representations of reality (Dare &Barreteau,

2003) and are often used as a safe learning environment for getting acquainted with the effects of

group dynamics, rules of information exchange, principles of negotiation, psychology or influence.

Depending on the setting, players might seek to maximize their own profits at the expense of the

other players (bargaining, non-cooperative strategy) or to cooperate and search for an agreement

that generates surplus benefits for all participants (Brams, 2003).

Managing natural resources and creating robust social-ecological systems requires the kind of thin-

king that goes beyond a profit-oriented business approach. Problems such as floodplain management

are complex - rich in uncertainties that affect many different human and organizational actors and

require their coordination and collaboration. Multiparty collaboration often takes place in under-de-

fined situations where knowledge is distributed, actors are interdependent and the solutions must be

innovative and synergistic but must also balance divergent stakeholder concerns and needs (Hardy,

Lawrence & Grant, 2005). Such processes are usually characterized by a non-hierarchical social struc-

ture and require ongoing negotiations and considerable learning - both about the system itself and

about other actors in the process. All partners must recognize their interdependence in order to cre-

ate a shared understanding of the situation and establish rules and goals of cooperation. Very often,

such groups already have a history of conflicts (sometimes of cooperation), and the success of the

project depends on developing new capacity for the social process (Craps, Bouwen & Taillieu, 2006).

Participatory modeling has developed over decades to address such challenges (Hare et al., this issue).

However, enhancing the social process is exactly the kind of challenge where role playing games pro-

ve particularly useful as ways to simulate how people address complex resource decisions, such as

sharing water for irrigation in Africa (Barreteau et al., 2001), farming and subsidies in North America

(Taff, 1998), and land use change around national parks in Poland (Krolikowska et al., 2007). Role-

playing games are highly flexible, creating an interactive social arena that leaves room for the de-

monstration of individual initiative and imagination (Ladousse, 1987), which is an advantage in games

involving policy-making.

There is growing evidence that combining computer-based simulations of problem-solving activities

with a social process exercise in one game is a powerful tool for education, policy testing and even

facilitating the actual regime transition in management of natural resources (Barreteau et al., 2001;

Dare & Barreteau, 2003; Etienne, 2003; Dray et al., 2007; Pahl-Wostl& Hare, 2004).

Learning Processes in Games - Relational and Problem-solving Activities

Games provide opportunities for learning. Micro-worlds facilitate exploration of various types of ac-

tivities and their consequences in a game environment. They allow learners to self-regulate their be-

havior in a learning process, adopting different decision strategies and altering them based on

experience with the game (Rieber, 1996). Playing a micro-world game essentially becomes an exercise

in problem-solving through testing mental models of the physical world that are used for understan-

ding how the world works and how to successfully interact with it.

On the other hand, negotiation games, are learning tools to acquire skills for communicating and

compromising in situations that require mutually beneficial agreements. The game setup is thus con-

structed to explore the ways that many (human) players might cooperate to achieve success, and

their main learning task lies in constructing a communication process that will lead to optimizing

everyone’s gains. Therefore, this approach is also known as an actor approach (Klabbers, 1996). Such

processes should consider certain psychological principles of communication, power in social rela-

tionships and the ability to coordinate behavior with other players. In complex multiparty games,

participants must go through a process of social learning that takes place at the systemic or cultural

level.     The experience of common actions and conversations on different levels of activity leads to

learning how to participate and how to interact with other players with the aim of achieving desira-

ble social outcomes, developing common attitudes and successfully completing the operational goal

of the game (Bouwen & Taillieu, 2004).

The Floodplain Management Game presented here is thus an attempt to create a hybrid learning

environment that allows participants both to explore the uncertainties and complexities of a ecolo-

gical and economic system as well as to experience a multi-party collaboration problem. In this sense,

it is possible to distinguish between ‘content’ or ‘problem’ oriented activities and ‘relational activi-

ties’. The content-related activities constitute the task-oriented dimension and often follow the clas-

sical steps of the problem solving cycle, in broad terms: problem definition, problem analysis,

solution analysis, and solution implementation (Kolb, 1984). On the other hand, the ‘relational tasks’

refer to interpersonal activities that allow creating a communication setup necessary for exchanging

information, building commitment of other stakeholders and stakeholder groups, recognizing their

perspectives and approaches and building a shared understanding of the system, as well as working

together on better understanding and optimizing the outcome of the game for all parties involved

  (Bouwen & Taillieu, 2004).

Method

The Game

In The Floodplain Management Game people play the roles of farmers or managers (local authorities

and water board) in a small area in a river basin. Farmers strive to create prosperous farms, but they

are strongly influenced by policies determined by the local authorities and water board.The local au-

thorities are responsible for the welfare of farmers. To this end they may try to influence the farmers

by, for example, taxes and subsidies, but they cannot force them to comply. Water managers, com-

prising the Water Board,define water policy with respect to the dikes as well as the water steering

system, allowing the control flow of the river water into the landscape. The Water Board depends

partly for their budget on local authorities. All players can explore many possible futures, looking at

the consequences of their individual and collective decisions on the sustainable development of their

area of the floodplain.

Elements ofthe Game

There are 24 parcels on the board, all located along the river, each with an assigned number. They are

the same size and differ only in terms of elevation (each elevation class is marked with different color

on the parcel – Figure 4).

Figure 4. The game board showing the blue river channel bordered by land parcels

at different elevations from low (white) to high (red) .

The higher the parcel elevation, the more dry it is, thereby suffering less from flood damage and mo-

re from drought. Farmers have complete control to decide what land uses to place on their parcels

(Figure 5).

Figure 5. Alternative production type for farm parcels: crop cultivation, animal husbandry, orchard, forest and fish pond.

Each parcel is characterized by different assets, costs, soil moisture requirements and impact on bio-

diversity, and farmers can choose one of the five land use types for each parcel. The productivity of

each parcel can be enhanced by choosing the proper production type and its associated production

assets.

Players’ actions influence biodiversity in the floodplain that in turn influences all parcels alike. Bio-

diversity is influenced by the assets used on farms, and, in turn, it influences production. The lower

its level, the less production is stimulated.

Water is a critical element in the game. The dynamics of water range from flood to drought and are

critical to the success of farmer decisions in the game.   Each parcel type has certain soil moisture re-

quirements, such that production is the most effective in a given range of soil wetness. The Water

Board makes strategic decisions regarding water policy to manage (open or close) the dykes and the

water steering system. For each period, soil moisture depends partly on that year’s level of local ra-

infall and the parcel’s elevation. Players cannot influence the river’s water level. If it is higher than

the dykes` elevation, then all farms are flooded.

Participants

There are the following types of players in the game (Figure 6):

- Farmers – owners of farms. At the beginning of the game, they are assigned to their farms, each of

which consists of a pre-set number of parcels of a given elevation and type. For each parcel they cho-

ose a production type, and can buy and sell parcels and production assets.

- Local authorities – are responsible to set and collect or distribute taxes and subsidies; they are also

owners of „state” parcels (if there are any in this configuration of the game).

- Water authorities – are responsible for protecting the area against flooding, maintaining the dykes

and canals of the water steering system.

The Game requires several facilitators to run it with specific roles ofleading facilitator, a banker and

computer model operator and help desk. Additionally for the research purpose several observers are

needed – ideally one observer per each players’ team.

The game begins with an extended Briefing period, often several hours long, to explain the rules and

give the participants opportunities to clarify and challenge all game protocols. This period includes

an introduction to a river system, such as the Tisza, on which the game was based. The actual game

session lasts from 6 up to 12 periods (referred to in the game as ‘years’), in which farmers, local au-

thorities and water authorities can plan and execute their strategies and test for their short-term and

long-term consequences.

Figure 6. Pictures from playing the Floodplain Management Game

Debriefing

An integral part of the players’ experience in Floodplain Management Game is debriefing after fini-

shing the game. The debriefing consists of two parts:

- learning about different landscape processes and floodplain management regimes

- learning about relational activities

The first part includes a precise presentation of rules of the game and their justification based on ac-

tual biophysical processes in a river landscape followed by a discussion explaining particular event

series as happened in the game as a result of players decisions and the rules of the game. The creates

a space for the players to challenge game assumptions. Alternative courses of events are also discus-

sed if necessary. This part ends by linking this new understanding with actual realities of river basin

management.

The second part of the debriefing focuses on social processes and interactions and includes reflec-

tions of participants about their initial goals and their evolution during the game. In a structured di-

scussion, all participants can reflect on their own experience as well as comment on other players’

stories.

The Game Mechanics – Biophysical Model

The game uses a simple stylized model defining critical relationships and processes. The model

transforms the players’ decisions into the changes of food production and of water infrastructures,

such as dykes. It also combines the environmental scenario (climate and hydrology) with choices ma-

de by the players (farmers and the Water Board) to produce the concrete values of farmers’ produc-

tion. Together the model and the players’ decisions form an integrated social-ecological system with

many interacting feedback loops. Figure 7 depicts the main relationships of the game design.

Figure 7. Concept Map of the Floodplain Management Game design

a) Main determinants of farms’ production and profit

b) Effects of meteorological, hydrological and water infrastructure conditions on   farms’ production and profit

a)

b)

Description ofCase Studies and Alternative Setups

The game has been played multiple times, in several countries, with a diversity of different partici-

pants ranging from Hungarian farmers, Ukrainian and Polish students and water managers to group-

work professionals in Belgium. The typical game setup that we have used has the following characte-

ristics:

- two types ofwater infrastructure

- managers fixed in their official roles during the game (no elections)

- all players receive the same information

- no forced interaction structure

In some cases we have used alternative setups to test possible variations of the game mechanics but

also to check the game’s flexibility to adapt to different user groups. More importantly, we were also

in the process of improving the game – especially the first several sessions were trial runs in a sense.

The game’s mechanics, instruction and materials were tested, as well as moderation and debriefing

protocols developed. As much as it contributes to inconsistencies in the procedure and weakens our

conclusions, we feel that even the early sessions brought rich and valuable data about players’ beha-

vior and therefore were included in the current analysis.

Where it was needed to better adjust to the players’ situation, we used only one type of water infra-

structure. We have tried a version of the game where managers are elected rather than fixed for the

whole game. We have also experimented with unequal distribution of information between players.

In some games we have put constraints on communication between parties, e.g. where there was a li-

mited amount of all-party meetings during the game. In one game, in between the meetings no more

than three parties could talk at the same time and place. The main characteristics are summarized in

the Table 1.

Observation Protocol

Each game was led by a trained team of facilitators, who collected observations regarding relational

and problem-solving activities. The scope and detail of these observations varied between cases, as

the observation procedure was being developed in parallel with the game itself – based both on gro-

wing theoretical insights and on the experience of playing the game and observing the process. The

first games provided rather unstructured impressions of players’ behaviors, while relatively recent

sessions, for example in Karpacz, had an extensive observation protocol with defined behavioral ca-

tegories that related to issues considered critical for managing the complex system of the river valley

coupled with a multiparty social setting.

Table 1 . Summary of case studies where the game has been tested.

The results described below are a compilation of conclusions from team debriefing sessions after ma-

ny different game sessions. In order to maintain reasonable consistency and comparativeness of all

results, their description will remain at a rather general level, with broadly defined categories, which

can be reasonably used for analyzing also the less structured observations from the early sessions.

This approach can thus be qualified as semi-structured observation and as such it provides an excel-

lent starting point for further, more rigid examination of behavioral effects.

Observations from various sessions were gathered and assigned to two general categories of problem-

solving activities and relational activities. Within each category, similar observations were aggrega-

ted and generalized based on the agreement of observers. Distinctive, atypical examples of behaviors

were included in the description as well, in order to illustrate the possible variation of outcomes. As a

result, the presented data hint towards certain regularities in players’ behaviors, as well as provide

some information about different possibilities and alternative outcomes of the game.

Observation results

Observation results were aggregated from different gaming sessions based on a set of categories. So-

me of them were present already in the early sessions, while others were added in the process of de-

veloping the game (see point 2b for the list). Players’ actions were flagged by their orientation:

problem-solving or relational. Observations are also linked with particular case studies (Table 1) pro-

vided in parentheses.

Problem-Solving Activities

Within the game, problem-solving activities were defined as critical procedural and process issues

which should be resolved by players to progress with the task. The problem-solving process consists

of many interweaving processes that include: identification of basic issues or problems encountered

in the system and establishing own goals, problem analysis that requires identifying other stakehol-

ders and stakeholder groups, as well as recognizing their problem definitions. Further steps include

organization that optimizes the process of creating a problem solution and ensures involvement of

stakeholders and use of available resources for efficient implementation of solutions. The process of

problem-solving is concluded with monitoring of results (Gray, 1989). Not all games advanced far

enough to show a complete process of problem solving. Indeed, in some cases players never managed

to advance beyond the phase of sharing and recognizing each other’s needs and understandings.

Our results focus around several major themes. We looked at activities at the level of the team and in

relation to other teams. Thus, we included roles and identities assumed by players as well as related

goals and time perspectives that were adopted in the course of the game. At the inter-team level, we

recorded activities aiming at identifying common issues and resources as well as the cases of exchan-

ging unevenly distributed information among teams.

The role of the main coordinator and manager of the whole valley was usually assumed by Local Au-

thorities who tried to use the tax policy to optimize the business environment for farms (Karpacz).

Their adopted agenda included a strong sense of responsibility, both in the sense of serving the inte-

rests of farmers, especially those worse-off (Niepolomice), while adopting a strong agenda of prese-

rving biodiversity (Niepolomice, Karpacz). The Water Board felt responsible to use whatever means

were available to protect all actors from flooding by managing dikes, (Karpacz, Wroclaw, Krakow,

Nagykörü, Mogilany, Niepolomice) and from drought using the irrigation system in Crimea, where

they tried to provide as much water as possible for all farmers.

The identities of farmers were partly dependent on the pre-defined assets they were given – resulting

in a spectrum ranging from large-scale, industrial food producers to small-scale, diversified, organic,

family farms. Depending on the adopted identity, farmers formulated different goals and agendas re-

sulting from different trade-offs between financial gains and ecological objectives. Maximizing profits

was important for all farmers, but maintaining a high level of biodiversity was equally important for

some of them (Karpacz, Niepolomice).

The time perspective also differed. In Karpacz, all players explicitly incorporated into their agenda

the long-term stability of the valley in terms of biodiversity and good conditions for farming. Short-

term interests were taken into account but mostly for reaching stable (yet not huge) profits each ro-

und. In most gaming sessions, short-term changes of decisions were used as a tool to explore the rules

governing the “world” of the game – many players changed their decisions every round to learn abo-

ut consequences of different decisions, relations between variables. Then after a few rounds, they

tried to implement a long-term strategy. A few participants tried to implement long-term strategies

from the beginning (Krakow, Niepolomice, Crimea).

Identifying common issues and resources took place in several game sessions, either as a result of

multilateral discussions (Karpacz) or facilitation of one actor, for example the Water Board (Nagy-

körü, Wroclaw). During the game the players realized that they were jointly responsible for the level

of biodiversity. Similarly, they became aware of the influence that the level of infrastructure had on

their incomes (Krakow, Niepolomice, Leuven). Previous experience of the group with similar games

led to early and unanimous recognition that all actors were jointly responsible for the level of biodi-

versity (Karpacz).

In several game setups, information was distributed unequally among players, so that they received

different sets of data, depending on their role in the game. This pre-existing information as well as

experience gained during the game was shared with other players in most games. This type of com-

munication took place between all types of actors. Local Authorities and the Water Board in general

shared information about their decisions and resources with other players (Nagykörü, Leuven, Kra-

kow, Niepolomice, Mogilany, Wroclaw, Warta, Karpacz). Local Authorities and the Water Board

exchanged information about the costs and effectiveness of different protective (water steering) sys-

tems and about the available/required budget (Karpacz). Farmers shared information amongst them-

selves about the specific requirements and profitability of different crops.   This ability to consult

other experienced farmers was important for farmers who wanted to change their production type

(Karpacz, Leuven). In some cases, farmers cooperated very closely or even merged to gain more profit

or to diversify their risks (Krakow, Niepolomice). Interestingly, in one case players did not share the

information they had with each other (Crimea).

Relational Activities

Relational activities included mainly how actors identified themselves in relation to other parties and

how social interactions developed. The complexity of this game setup required players to interact,

exchange information, and choose a model ofmutual relations, be it competitive or cooperative.

Observations of relational activities focused around consequences of adopted roles/identities for in-

ter-group relations, such as communication, conflicts, responsibility, power. We were particularly

interested in the process ofmutual recognition of each other’s positions and interests and the success

of constructing a resilient group process.

All players identified significantly with their roles, which led to heated debates between groups and

within groups (Warta, Crimea, Niepolomice).   Local Authorities and the Water Board in most cases

assumed the top-down vision ofpublic institutions.

In nearly all cases the Local Authorities, and to a lesser extent the Water Board, were expected to or

even volunteered to discuss policies and investments with farmer teams but eventually all decisions

were made by the institutional players. The general willingness to share information can be inter-

preted as an indicator of high levels of trust   (Warta, Karpacz) and in some cases led to collaborative

decision-making (Kraków, Niepolomice). However, sometimes, players were very competitive and did

not want to reveal their strategies (Niepolomice), or the farmers did not trust the Local Authorities

and the Water Board to the extent that they decided to vote them out by choosing the manager with a

laissez-faire attitude (Leuven) who would allow them to do whatever they chose to do. In the most

extreme cases, all players were competitive and didn’t want to reveal their strategies (Crimea).

In nearly all cases players interacted with some parties but seldom found a method to exchange in an

orderly fashion with all parties. The challenge was to construct a process that would allow all actors

to express their goals and needs in a way that would be heard, recognized and accommodated by all

other players. As a result, conflicts related to the distribution of subsidies, the conditions of growth

and the mode ofproduction (Wroclaw, Warta) undermined attempts to cooperate.

The recognition of other actors’ positions and interests was rarely a result of conscious efforts of the

players. It often emerged as a (distorted or misinterpreted) byproduct of conflicts and conflicting de-

mands. The level of commitment among players also played a role in the way needs and goals were

communicated, for example when demanding special privileges for disadvantaged farms or when at-

tempting to protect biodiversity at any cost. In some game sessions (Warta), the Local Authorities de-

cided to take sides and support small, ecological farms in opposition to large-scale industrial farms.

The success of a multiparty process strongly depends on the establishment of ground rules for fur-

ther interactions. Several issues need to be resolved, such as: who sets the agenda, how are conflic-

ting views managed, and how are decisions made. The task of facilitating the agreement about

common ground rules belongs to the leader of the group. In the game setting, the natural leaders we-

re institutional, e.g.. the Local Authorities   and the Water Board. Indeed, in some cases they attemp-

ted to manage the group process by increasing collaboration or by trying to find a solution common

to all parties (Wroclaw). These attempts were overall unsuccessful in that discussions seeking con-

sensus were led in a rather unstructured and haphazard way (Wroclaw). Conflicting views were often

neglected, (e.g. the case of a small unsuccessful farmer), and their issues remained unresolved (Kar-

pacz). The attempts of the Local Authorities to take the leading role in the whole community were not

consistent and therefore not very successful (Karpacz).

Noticeably, and not surprisingly, the individual predispositions of players interfered with institutio-

nal roles when it came to identifying leaders. For both authorities and farmers, each team had its le-

ader, who emerged quickly and naturally soon after the game started. Players who were leaders in

the real-world community naturally took leadership also in the game (Warta, Karpacz, Krakow, Nie-

polomice).

Framing and reframing the issues in the problem domain was an important element of relational

processes (Dewulf et al., 2007). Actors use frames to make sense of information, especially about their

physical and social environment. Thus actors from different backgrounds, e.g. disciplines, profes-

sions, cultures, sectors, etc., use different frames to make sense of the situation. This results in ambi-

guity or the simultaneous presence of multiple frames. Frames identify problems and interventions,

including and excluding actors. When actors meet each other, differences in issue framing emerge

and have to be dealt with on the spot. Examples of framing relationships between actors included the

self-assumed responsibility of the Local Authority for providing safe, stable conditions for the farms

to function. It resulted in unilateral diagnosis of needs of other players and taking full responsibility

for choosing types of interventions, preventing disasters and negotiating between other actors (Kar-

pacz) while failing to hear and understand actual actors.

Relationships between farmers were diverse. Farmers made alliances in order to diversify risks and

achieve more profits (Krakow, Niepolomice, Leuven). Uneven performance and financial situation led

to different frames on support for financially-disadvantaged farmers ranging from “they have real

needs - we should help them” to “if they get money we want money also” (Wroclaw).   In some games,

a considerable number of farmers gathered from time to time to represent common views and discuss

or sometimes negotiate,with the Water Board and Local Authorities (Niepolomice) (in Krakow the in-

terests groups ready for discussions were smaller).

Discussion

FMG as a Tool for Learning About Different Management Regimes

The idea of the Floodplain Management Game was inspired by a “shadow network” (Olsson et al.,

2006, Sendzimir et al., 2008, 2010) of Hungarian scientists, activists and representatives of admini-

stration exploring the possibilities of implementing an alternative river management regime (RMR)

in the Tisza region. A broad systems analysis of data in the knowledge base related to the RMR was

elaborated into a quantitative system dynamics model that was subsequently developed into a game.

It has been continually improved and modified since then, bringing innovation with each iteration of

play and being adopted for specific purposes.

The game constitutes a simplified and stylized representation of a spatially diverse landscape acted

on by river and social dynamics (Duke, 1974). Yet it does reflect the complexity of landscape level

management when the landscape is shaped not only by individual decisions but also by collective le-

vel decisions, as represented in the game by water managers, about river-landscape connectivity.

Combined choices, both individual and collective, can be represented by stability landscape corre-

sponding to “conventional” management regime and “adaptive” management regime (Figure 8).

Figure 8. Alternative river management regimes (RMR) conceptualized in the game. Adaptive

RMR and Conventional RMR are conceptualized as stability domains. The Current RMR,

represented by a ball, shows an actual state of the system in transformation.

The “conventional” regime favors intensive farming linked with high dikes. This lowers transaction

costs by allowing individualized and, to a large extent, landscape-independent decisions on land use

without any need for farmers to collaborate. The alternative, adaptive regime favors high river-land-

scape connectivity and diversified land use, which depends both on elevation and on the choices of

other farmers. It requires much stronger coordination between managers and farmers as well as ef-

fective collaboration between farmers.

The game can flexibly be adapted to different scenarios and creative approaches of the players, thus

facilitating the application and testing of many different approaches, i.e. “policy exercises”(Roelofs,

2000). For example, managers can each be given their own policy based on their worldview, as well as

contradictory goals (such as nature conservation vs. building high dykes). Some game arrangements

can simulate real world policy fragmentation, allowing participants to directly experience and engage

a challenge that hinders the transition to a more harmonized management regime. For example, one

game scenario might include playing with spatial arrangements, such the obstacles (distance, diffe-

rent rooms) separating the Local Authorities and the Water Board players, to examine the outcomes

when communication between them is hindered or enhanced.

Control over (un)equal distribution of assets and information allows game facilitators to manipulate

the relative power of actors. This ties in to the necessity to create an efficient procedure for exchan-

ging and sharing information as well as to establish ground rules that can be accepted by all players

(Gray, 1989). The Floodplain Management Game can be used to present the players with systemic

knowledge about solutions to problems related to river valley management in particular or to com-

plex systems management in general. The second, more exploratory aim is to use the game to esta-

blish a virtual space where the attitudes of the local community engage directly with their situation

and with the possibilities that open within the game reality. Farmers choices are contingent on the

state of their environment, but their choices in turn influence the environment. When the majority of

farmers choose extensive types of farming, such choices help to preserve the biodiversity that susta-

ins farm productivity. On the other hand, dominance of intensive farming will undermine biodiversi-

ty, and hence profits, in the long term.

The Floodplain Management Game can be used to explore barriers and bridges of groups to transfor-

mation between management regimes. Engagement in their roles allows people to experience the si-

tuation not only intellectually but also emotionally by exploring their hopes for and threats to their

futures. Additionally it creates an arena for dialogue without dominance of any particular solutions.

The game represents a post-normal approach to decision-making in complex situations in which the

process of constructing solutions and the involvement of all interested parties are essential for legi-

timacy of the end-result (Dare & Barreteau, 2003). Management is thus seen as an adaptive process

where policy solutions must be flexible and undergo constant improvement, based on changing con-

ditions and evolution of the system understanding.

FMG as a Tool for Combined Relational and Problem-Solving Learning -- Lessons from our Game Ses-

sions

River basin management is recognized as a fruitful setting to study complexity problems and the role

of social processes for managing environmentally challenging issues. In this sense, games provide an

effective learning tool to explore and improve the process of social learning (Woodhill, 2003) in which

actors learn how to deal with a diversity and divergence of views in order to innovate and adapt poli-

cies to complex and changing environmental conditions. The model part of the game provides the

necessary external feedback about (often nonlinear) change of the state of the system (the environ-

ment) driven by players decisions. The process of social learning engages different actors and leads to

improved understanding of interdependencies among actors and between actors and their environ-

ment. It also allows actors to identify and deal with conflicts and social dilemmas as well as test diffe-

rent problem-solving strategies (Bouwen & Taillieu, 2004).

In nearly all the games we examined, players failed to organize the process that would allow all actors

to express their needs and objectives so that other players would recognize them and accommodate

in a common management policy. Our outcomes suggest that the main experience that players gain is

not one of taking part in a successful problem-solving process. This should not be surprising given

the complexity of the problem itself and a very limited time devoted to playing. The main effect we

did observe was related to the potential insight that the players get about the importance of the rela-

tional practices for the success of the problem-solving process – it was mainly the lack of an efficient

interpersonal process that undermined coordination ofproblem-solving activities.

The inability of leaders to organize a transparent and efficient discussion process while adopting the

top-down management strategy was a good illustration of how certain social processes can lead to

environmental outcomes unsatisfying and suboptimal for all players (Gray, 1989, Vansina, Taillieu,

Schruijer, 1996).   In most games, players sooner or later decided to exchange information, but unclear

interests, responsibilities and individual strategies limited the possibility to use the aggregated in-

formation to significantly improve knowledge and understanding players had about the game world

(Vansina&Taillieu, 1997). However, in several cases, important lessons about the interdependency of

actors were achieved, mainly in terms of common efforts to build infrastructure and to maintain high

levels of biodiversity. In this sense, the game setting may be considered a case of a ‘community of

practice’ in which people learn through engaging in a joint process (Wenger, 1998). The game can be

used as a diagnostic tool to get the sense of how the process of collective problem solving is develo-

ped and identify bottlenecks in order to recommend additional training or different tools that would

facilitate the relational process.

The roles and identities adopted by players clearly referred to stereotypical institutional roles and

rarely evolved during the game. The institutional actors (Local Authorities and the Water Board) co-

operated in many game sessions, trying to use their respective competences for providing safe and

stable business environment for the farmers. Local Authorities also often felt responsible for initia-

ting or coordinating actions that would lead to protecting biodiversity. In this sense, both institutio-

nal actors adopted tasks they felt were of public interest, though they rarely consulted the public.

Those acting as the Local Authority struggled with their role. By defining themselves as professionals,

they adopted the top-down approach and made plans for the farmers, rather than with the farmers,

and they had difficulties to convince and reconnect with them.

Farmers themselves adopted different roles and goals, with some of them focusing on profit and eco-

nomic efficiency, while others related mainly to long-term sustainable development. Creating a good

management policy for the river valley is a general, implied, goal of the game, and it requires the

players to learn how to approach the tensions between individual versus common goals and between

short-term versus long-term perspectives. They experience in relational terms a difficulty between

independence in running their farm, and the need to find a procedural, interactive way to handle –

together - the long-term issues. The institutional actors in the game can help to provide conditions

for the common good, but do not have the power to force the farms into any particular solutions.

Therefore, their big task is to look for working methods to deal with this situation effectively.

Interestingly, previous experience with similar games(that was the case e.g. for the group in Karpacz)

leads to changes in performance. Players were more willing to adopt the long-term planning per-

spective, and they shared the sense of collective responsibility for biodiversity. This suggests that the

game’s usefulness as a learning tool increases as experience accumulates with its sequential use. For

example, if the first game session allows players to discuss their own performance and learn skills

that would help them to organize the relational process better, then the second game session can be-

come a playground to test the new approach to creating common solutions and generating new policy

approaches.

In practical terms, data used for the presented analysis came from different gaming sessions that dif-

fered in regard to the game setting, debriefing process and observational process. In this sense, the

collected data are not ideal as there was no consistent data collection protocol that would be valid for

all gaming sessions. The protocols for debriefing and observation have been developed over time,

with growing experience with the game and after several iterative attempts to structure the under-

lying theoretical framework. While we recognize that it is a major drawback of this dataset, we feel

that the level of analysis we adopted (rather general) is adequate to all collected observations and

makes available quite rich material. Further testing of the game and the protocols is however neces-

sary, and generalization of results should be limited and cautious.

Comparison With Other Games

Many simulations in use regarding the management of environmental resources, e.g. ‘The Yachtclub’

(Vansina, Taillieu, Schruijer, 1999), ‘The Caspean Sea’   (DeRidder&Callewaert, 1999), ‘Podocarpus Na-

tional park’ (Dewulf et al., 2005), ‘Gorgel’, (Andriessen, et al., 2010), Njoobaariilnoowo (Dare &Barre-

atou, 2003), Shadoc MAS (Barreteau and Bousquet, 2000) are designed to deal with “organizational

messes” or systemic failures, e.g. institutional breakdowns. These are most often addressed with a

bottom-up approach (Gray, 1989). As such the simulations basically deal with the relational aspects of

bringing and keeping  independent parties together long enough to develop a common ground  to so-

lve a problem that transcends the vision and the resources of any single interest group.

The FMG has been designed and redesigned to deal more explicitly with the content and the process

of managing natural resources. It offers a relatively rich game setting in which players have to deal

with many simultaneous processes – both related to the problem-solving process (optimizing their

own score, maintaining biodiversity) and the relational process (relate to other actors, explore and

understand different viewpoints and negotiate common solutions).

The FMG is thus different from tools such as conflict resolution algorithms or bargaining flight simu-

lators in that it combines the relational aspect of a negotiation process with a computer model that

simulates the complexity of environment and mimics the external conditions governed by rules and

processes that are largely independent from players’ decisions. On the other hand, it differs from

computer models focused purely on the problem-solving process (such as Idagon River) by introdu-

cing multiple human actors each with different goals and identities that must interact with each

other and the computer model in order to progress with the process of problem solving.

The combination of the social process and a computer model is successfully employed in many tools

used for management of natural resources. For example, participatory agent-based simulations are

based on the concept of inviting the actual actors whose behavior is represented in the computer

model to contribute to the creation of this very computer tool. This approach facilitates understan-

ding of the system, helps to make different conceptual frames explicit and facilitates information

exchange between actors. It is the computer model that is the main product of this process, but the

byproducts, such as increased social capital and improved mutual understanding are important for

improved capacity for problem solving and cooperative agreements (Pahl-Wostl & Hare, 2004).

Similar to other role-playing games (eg. Hare, Heeb, & Pahl-Wostl, 2002; Etienne 2003; Dare & Barre-

teau, 2003), the FMG allows players to experience how their own actions interplay with and affect ac-

tions of other actors and observe consequences of their decisions in the artificial, time-compressed

environment of the model. Problems with establishing and applying a set of efficient ground rules

that would facilitate the discussion seem to be present in other games, too but they do not necessarily

lead to a deadlock that would prevent the group from finding new policy solutions (eg. Dray et al.,

2007).

The ability of role playing games to sustain the prolonged motivation and commitment of actors to

discuss complex and difficult issues related to natural resource management (Dray et al., 2007; Etien-

ne, 2003) makes them an attractive and useful tool to work with various types of actors. Adding a

computer model that simulates a complex social-ecological reality can help to maintain realistic le-

vels of uncertainty and dynamics and prevents oversimplifications and unjustified assumptions about

the course of events. At the same time, the FMG, as well as other RPG-computer model games offer an

open-ended type ofgame with multiple solutions possible.

Conclusions

The key feature of the Floodplain Management Game is that it unites technical (problem-solving) and

relational issues in one game.   Without exception in multiple venues it has proven a useful tool for

participants to experience the challenge of creating a policy for managing rivers as well as for flood-

plain agriculture and for scientists to examine how stakeholders make decisions about such options.

In the latter case, we observed in most game runs that participants remained focused almost entirely

on the technical issues (problem solving). They did not organize well enough to process, understand

and refine their mutual interactions and thus invested almost no time in regulating their relational

activities.

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