A serious gaming tool: Bow River Sim for communicating integrated water resources management

Abstract

Serious games provide a way for stakeholders to become engaged in and understand the issues and constraints on a real-world system. An application of a serious game is explored, as a way to improve engagement and learning of participants in a water management planning process. Bow River Sim is a single-player game that helps the user to understand the Water Resources Management Model (WRMM) and to visualize the implications and impacts around system interactions in the basin. The Bow River Sim simulates water management decision-making based on maximizing social, economic, and environmental benefits while managing limited water supply. The game incorporates the principles of ‘meaningful play’ and provides a user-friendly interface, a fun game, and visual elements. The paper aims to (a) provide an overview of Bow River Sim, (b) illustrate how innovations such as serious games enhance learning processes for the user, and (c) illustrate the application of Bow River Sim and key learnings.

Serious games as social innovation tools

“…In the first moment of the theoretical framework, it was presented how games have been used for different purposes in society, starting from something innate to man until its function of addressing more complex issues in society through teaching and learning, immersion, persuasiveness, stimulation cooperation and the ability to generate a sense of belonging (Huizinga, 2014;Johnson, 2016;Ampatzidou et al, 2018;Rocha, 2018;Medeiros, 2019;Klabbers, 2018). Then, the most recent studies on serious games were discussed, which are digital or analog games used within a well-defined space and that have a specific purpose that goes beyond entertainment, serving as a tool for the areas of education, training , health, well-being, advertising and communication and various fields of non-formal education (Olejniczak et al, 2020;Stewart et al, 2013;Mayer et al, 2016, Drummond et al, 2017Wilkinson, 2016;Schrier, 2016;Akhtar et al, 2020;Sharma, 2020;Fonseca et al, 2021;Hawthorn et al, 2021).…”

“…Serious games provide a way for interested parties to engage and understand the issues and constraints in a real-world system, but to do so requires an aspect of game play, simulation and learning in almost equal measure, as combining game and simulation, without the learning aspect, will only result in simulation games that are purely for entertainment (Akhtar et al, 2020).…”

“…It presents a way to improve the participants' engagement and learning in a water management planning process, presenting a powerful real water resources allocation model, incorporating gameplay and visual feedback. The game can be used by a variety of people, such as professionals, students, water-related decision makers, and dam operators (Akhtar et al, 2020).…”

How to communicate and educate more effectively on natural risk issues to improve disaster risk management through serious games

“…These types of games are intended for a high number of people, from different contexts, providing them with face-toface discussion and negotiation about a given problem. Players have the opportunity to share different values and perspectives, engaging stakeholders with conflicting interests to cooperate towards a common goal (Akhtar et al, 2020). Floods (e.g.…”

Serious Gaming for Water Resources Planning and Hazard Mitigation

“…Within the gaming environment, players can assume realistic roles (Hayden et al, 2007), tackle issues, devise strategies, make decisions, and get quick feedback on their actions (Newman et al, 2017) while interacting through live experiences that enable incorporation of their perspectives and reflections for social learning (Medema et al, 2016;Van der Wal et al, 2016). A well-designed serious game has the potential to not only playing the role of a learning tool, but more importantly, they may give rise to shared values and engage stakeholders with conflicting interests to cooperate towards a common goal (Akhtar et al, 2020).…”