The use of gamification tools to understand climate change-based challenges of the future in the Canterbury Region

Overview

Serious games are part of a range of participatory modelling tools that are improving the traditional multi-criteria decision-making processes that consider linearity but not complexity in a world under uncertainty. Games are powerful instruments as they represent different roles and enable perspective-taking of different groups, such as policy-makers, industry, communities, and local iwi. I propose a participatory modelling methodology for stakeholders’ engagement using gamification tools to understand climate change-based challenges of the future in the Canterbury Region. Using data-driven decision-making process under uncertainty. The methodology will be scalable and replicable to other local governmental agencies and district councils in Aotearoa-New Zealand, and overseas.

 

People

Bryann Avendano

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Project aims

  1. Mapping social and infrastructure interdependencies.
  2. Creating a role-playing game based on hypothetical climate change-based challenges and disasters, using the Canterbury Region’s real context as a case study.
  3. Implementing and testing the role-playing game with a target group in the Canterbury Region including a targeted group of policymakers from local governments, climate scientists, and community leaders.
  4. Assess and validate the methodology’s implementation as a resilience planning tool for local governments and adjust it for analyzing future climate change hypothetical and practical scenario planning.
Audience

Local Governments and policymakers.

Project execution

The methodology is under construction. We are still creating and evaluating participatory methodologies combining elements from serious games, mathematical modelling simulations, theatre, and role-play simulations.

Challenges

Validating prototypes of a methodology is not easy and sometimes, it becomes harder when we are trying something totally new and innovative, it requires people to take risks to the unknown.

Outcomes

We are writing two papers to explore for the first time the methodology to analyze civil and natural systems Engineering.