A Serious Board Game to Analyze Socio-Ecological Dynamics towards Collaboration in Agriculture †
1
Institute of Hydrology and Meteorology, Technische Universität Dresden, 01069 Dresden, Germany
2
Kansas Geological Survey, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66047, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
This paper is an extended version of our paper published in the AGU Fall Meeting 2019 (OSPA Winner), San Francisco, CA, USA, 9–13 December 2019.
Sustainability 2020, 12(13), 5301; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12135301
Received: 12 June 2020 / Revised: 25 June 2020 / Accepted: 26 June 2020 / Published: 30 June 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Socio-Ecological Systems Sustainability)
Climate change exacerbates water scarcity and associated conflicts over water resources. To address said conflicts and achieve sustainable use of water resources in agriculture, further development of socio-ecological adaptations are required. In this study, we evaluate the ability of MAHIZ, a serious board game, to analyze socio-hydrological dynamics related to irrigated agriculture. Gameplay involves the player’s decision-making with associated impacts on water resources and crop productivity in diverse climate and policy scenarios. We evaluated MAHIZ as (1) an innovative science communication and sustainability education approach, and (2) a data collection method to inform socio-hydrological theory and models. Analysis of 35 recorded game sessions demonstrated that MAHIZ is an effective education tool about the tragedy of commons in agrohydrology and was able to identify important decision-making processes and associations between critical social parameters (e.g., communication, trust, competence) and the evolution of collective action. MAHIZ has an open game design, so the approach can be adapted for both scientific insight and outreach.
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Keywords:
socio-hydrology; irrigation; serious games; decision-making parameters; agent-based modeling
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MDPI and ACS Style
Orduña Alegría, M.E.; Schütze, N.; Zipper, S.C. A Serious Board Game to Analyze Socio-Ecological Dynamics towards Collaboration in Agriculture. Sustainability 2020, 12, 5301. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12135301
AMA Style
Orduña Alegría ME, Schütze N, Zipper SC. A Serious Board Game to Analyze Socio-Ecological Dynamics towards Collaboration in Agriculture. Sustainability. 2020; 12(13):5301. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12135301
Chicago/Turabian StyleOrduña Alegría, María E., Niels Schütze, and Samuel C. Zipper 2020. "A Serious Board Game to Analyze Socio-Ecological Dynamics towards Collaboration in Agriculture" Sustainability 12, no. 13: 5301. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12135301
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