The river basin game as a tool for collective water management at community level in South Africa

Abstract

In the Olifants river basin about 60% of water resource is used in agriculture (DWAF, 2004). Agriculture faces increasing competition from other water users, constraining its contribution to economic growth. Spatial and temporal water shortage for irrigation affects small scale farmers resulting in conflicts on sharing the little available water. This paper presents the River Basin Game (RBG) as a tool for equitable and sustainable water resource use in the Sofaya irrigation scheme in Sekororo, Olifants in South Africa. The area provides an ideal setup for investigative work described below as it lend itself to a mixture of large-scale and small-scale irrigation farmers sharing the same water resource.The river basin game addresses irrigation water use efficiency and access between upstream and downstream users. It is applied with the development of new ideas on the ground, supported by lessons learnt at local, regional and international audiences. The RBG was first developed at University of Anglia, United Kingdom (UK) as a teaching tool and tested in Tanzania under the project Raising Irrigation Productivity And Releasing Water for Intersectoral Needs (RIPARWIN). The current version of the game incorporates a groundwater component.The results reported are from two RBG workshops held in Sekororo. The first workshop consisted of small-scale farmers from different irrigation schemes and researchers, while the second consisted of farmers from Sofaya irrigation scheme.Farmers were able to relate to the board game representation to their reality and accepted the schematic representation of their reality. Firstly, the RBG demonstrated that role-playing can benefit understanding of top-tail inequities of water supply. Secondly, that solutions lie with communities, particularly if given support by formal institutions such as universities, research institutions, government and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) willing to respond to their needs. The game has proved to be an effective discussion support tool that should be upscaled to the Olifants river basin.

An assessment of the effects of Africa's water crisis on food security and management

“…A recent study of small-scale water users in the Olifants River basin in South Africa by Magombeyi, Rollin, and Lankford (2008), for instance, found that education programmes which trained farmers to become more active stakeholders in communal water-access decision making produced improved outcomes for water management and conservation (Magombeyi et al, 2008). The study indicated the particular importance of dynamic interaction amongst different stakeholders in negotiations for limited water allocation, particularly the lowest local water management institutions, such as irrigation committees comprising smallholder farmers.…”

“Playing the game”, identity and perception-of-the-other in water cooperation in the Jordan River Basin

“…The game serves as a simplified metaphor for the Jordan River Basin and a methodological tool to observe human behaviour in decisionmaking processes of water cooperation. River basin boardgames distil the main dimensions of ecological and human processes in a conceptual hydrological model (Lankford 2007, Magombeyi 2008. Bruce Lankford (2007) has contributed greatly to natural resource gaming with his River Basin Game as a dialogue tool for decision makers and water users of surface water resources.…”

Models, Simulations and Games for Water Management: A Comparative Q-Method Study in The Netherlands and China

“…Some MSG have been used effectively however as intervention method with local stakeholders at a community level, for instance with local farmers or fishermen in rural areas of developing countries. See for a few examples: [33,36,40,41].…”