‘The Mekong Water Custodian’ is a ‘Participatory Regional Decision Process Simulation’ or ‘Serious Gaming for Participatory Regional Decision Making’. This project was awarded as the winning proposal in the category ‘Water Efficiency’ in the agro-water contest of the Netherlands Embassy in Hanoi in November 2020.

The Mekong Water Custodian aims to

• Capture farmer's Mental Models reflecting their agricultural practices.

• Enhance the Climate Smart Agriculture in the Lower Mekong Delta.

• Strengthen inclusive planning and management of the region.

The Mekong Water Custodian is a board game with partial support of online tools for the calculation

A crucial demand of the system is a proper balance among physical, socio-economic and governance aspects of agricultural and water management.

Central concept is the Farmer’s Mental model to make the participatory planning process more inclusive towards local communities.

We initiate a participatory and real inclusive approach for local decision making while creating proper ownership of the tool and process.

We developed a prototype of an exploration and communication tool (management simulation or serious game) for exploring Farmer’s Mental models. These concepts and tools reinforce the connection between the planning processes and local communities. They thus help enhancing societal feasibility and acceptance of agricultural planning and interventions.

BID! BID! BID!

The game board: 16 tiles of Land types are divided depending on the following 3 categories and auctioned among the players

• Land suitability classified by salinity and temperature

• Land scores classified by cropping pattern

• Monetary value assigned to each land types

Maximum 5 tiles of land can be bought

Conflicts over land chosen by more than one player needs to be resolved by negotiation and bidding

Invest! Time, Energy and Capital

This round is divided into 2 phases- ‘Monsoon’ and ‘Winter’.

• Players need to select cropping patterns for each of their lands. There is an option to leave land fallow. Each of the cropping patterns comes with a monetary value.

• A dice will be rolled out at this point to determine the climatic situation for the season. The dominant scenario of the dice ranks from driest to wettest for 1 to 6 respectively. Each of these scenarios comes with a value- for example a score 6 during monsoon will require extra budget for drainage intervention whereas a 1 will require extra budget for irrigation facilities.

• The profit and loss for each player is determined

Note: Players are allowed to take loans/ lease lands/ sell lands in case of necessity

You are only one choice away from changing your world. Choose Wisely!

In this round intervention cards which will reflect the planned or possible interventions (water structure, fertilizers, pumps, pesticides) in the study area

• Players will have to chose one or multiple interventions suitable for the land utility option selected in the previous round

• The intervention choice must address the challenges of climatic scenario determined by throwing of the dice

• Each intervention card will come with a monetary value

• Study the dynamics through discussion and dialogue

'For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction' (Newton's 3rd law) - So reflect on your action and reactions!

• Let the game be your guide to walk you through the destiny you choose for yourself!

Our team