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Disaster Risk Management & Resilience

disaster-risk-management

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Aleksandra Solińska-Nowak

Aleksandra Solińska-Nowak

20 min read

31.01.2020

Unnatural disasters

How to communicate risks better?

Hazards may be natural, disasters are not

A hazard is „a process, phenomenon or human activity that may cause loss of life, injury or other health impacts, property damage, social and economic disruption or environmental degradation.” (UNISDR, 2016).

When it comes to origins, hazards may be natural, anthropogenic or socio-natural. Natural hazards are foremost connected to natural processes, be it geological and meteorological, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, wildfires, cyclones, floods, droughts, avalanches  and landslides or biological (disease, infection, infestation and invasive species) (Burton et al., 1993).

Not every natural hazard must, however, cause what is often referred to as „natural disaster.” In fact, most scientists and disaster experts agree that „there’s nothing \”natural\”—which is to say, nothing inevitable—about a disaster. (Pierre-Louis, 2017):

\”Most of what we call natural disasters (tornadoes, droughts, hurricanes) are indeed natural, though human contributions may increase their likelihood or intensity. But they aren\’t disasters—they\’re hazards. If a hurricane slams into land where no one lives, it isn\’t a disaster; it\’s weather. A disaster is when a natural hazard meets a human population. And often, that intersection is far from natural.” (Pierre-Louis, 2017).

In other words, what makes (natural) hazards become (unnatural) disasters depends primarily on the way people interact with, prepare for and respond to hazards. Potential disastrous impacts may be avoided, lessened or worsened depending on our choices. In many cases, hazards are either predictable or have even been predicted prior to their emergence. 

The need for a more integrated, holistic approach both to the resource management and to the global policy in general became even more undisputable with the adaptation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. To simultaneously address the 17 major priorities, ranging from poverty and hunger alleviation, gender equality, industry development to sustainable production and environment protection, we are all required to recognize the interrelatedness and interdependence of these, partially overlapping or competing, goals, and to grasp the complex net of interactions, trade-offs and synergies that they create. Advancing towards a more stable and sustainable future depends thus on the “nexus thinking” or “systems thinking” that, instead of just looking at individual components and short-term quantitative outcomes, recognizes feedbacks and connections, and promotes concerted action and cooperation on a global scale across sectors, time and space. 

From time to time a woman in black approaches each department, passing them a thick pile of documents. Upon her arrival, the group discussions become even more stormy. It means that a new problem or request has been submitted by the society. Departments’ heads are scanning the documents quickly, trying to prioritize issues the group has to address. The time is running, members of the groups seem to be far from reaching a consensus, and a stream of new issues is still flowing. Suddenly, a collective sigh of relief may be heard – the water department voted for a policy unanimously. The head of the department leaves to pass their proposal to the council. Just in time! Almost simultaneously, a moderator rings a bell and asks the buzzing crowd for attention.

It is easy to be wise after the event

Let’s take the example of Katrina, one of the most disastrous hurricanes that hit the USA and caused the flooding of 80% of New Orleans in 2005. In fact, experts on hurricanes and on New Orleans had known the impact of Katrina on the city even before it emerged. Many earlier storms had similar effects on the location. In addition, computer models were built by the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center and „predicted that a storm of Katrina\’s strength would produce ‘back door’ flooding from Lake Pontchartrain and the canals. (Hays, 2005). \”Anybody, going back 10 or 15 years, could see this was a disaster just waiting to happen\” (Sohn, 2005). So, if the hazard had been known, how come it  was „allowed” to develop into a disaster?

Martin Ras (2005) has the answer: Disaster exposure is highly dependent on the way we develop, build and construct our towns and cities. In cases of New Orleans, it was literally \”wrested from nature\” (Hays, 2005). Built in the Mississippi River delta where the river dumps into the Gulf of Mexico, for hundreds of years, the city was regularly haunted by floods. The surrounding marshes and islands were, however, able to absorb the impact of storm surges from hurricanes that systematically occurred in the area in summertime. Unfortunately, in the 1980s, the river banks were strengthen with concrete and levees were built (Sohn, 2005). Since then, New Orleans has not had regular flooding. Silt no longer builds up and the ground under the city has been sinking. \”Now, when hurricanes come, the natural shock absorber of the delta is gone, increasing the impact of storm surges.\” (Sohn, 2005)

flood

Underestimating the risk

Hurricane Katrina is just one of the many examples of how erroneous construction decisions, risk-blind land use or short-term economic interests may lead to the increased vulnerability and exposure to hazards. It\’s not that we do not have the engineering and technological capacities to mitigate disaster impacts. All the time engineers and scientists design disaster smart solutions. In fact, scientific and technological advances have made it possible to anticipate disaster risks, enabling governments, civil society organizations, NGOs and communities to prepare for these eventualities and take early action (Solinska-Nowak et al., 2018). 

So why don\’t we make use of this information? Why, despite warnings, people continue to locate their homes and assets in exposed areas? Why do they ignore building constraints or invest in wrong solutions? The answer seems worryingly simple:  Many people still live in risky areas or take irresponsible decisions because the risks weren’t made clear to them, or because they underestimate them.

Need for a new approach to risk communication

How to change this? One of the solutions may be a new approach to risk communication. For many years, traditional approach to risk communication and disaster management has been focused on top-down, centralized processes in which \”the decision-making and strategy development is the forte of governments, researchers and disaster managers\” (Solinska-Nowak et al., 2018). In such approach, little attention is given to translating scientific information and expert knowledge to more comprehensible language. As a result, regular people cannot easily make sense of what is communicated to them and remain blissfully unaware of what precautions they may take.

For this reason, there have been increasing calls in the last decade to move away from top-down, structural and purely scientific approaches to more participatory and community-based DRM strategies (Solinska-Nowak et al, 2018). The main advantage of such approaches is the fact that “…the end users of information [are treated] not merely as a target audience but as partners in co-learning through processes and products that reflect their own contributions” (Roncoli, 2006).  

Can games and simulations help?

Following this shift in approach to risk communication, decision-making and practice, there is increased recognition that serious games and simulations may serve as a promising participatory tool, and support understanding of essential issues, such as sustainable development, climate-change mitigation and disaster resilience. Authors of an interesting article \”An overview of serious games for disaster risk management – Prospects and limitations for informing actions to arrest increasing risk\” decided thus to check the potential of such activities for raising disaster-awareness. If you want to learn how (and if) games and simulations can help people become less vulnerable do natural hazards, you should definitely read it! It is enough to follow this link.

References

Burton, I.; Kates, R.W.; White, G.F. (1993). The environment as hazard. Guilford Press. ISBN 9780898621594.

Hayes, B. (2005) Natural and Unnatural Disasters. American Scientist. November-December 2005. Volume 93, Number 6, p. 496, DOI: 10.1511/2005.56.496

Martin Ras (2017) Natural disasters don’t exist but natural hazards do. United Nations Development Programme

Sohn, E. (2005) Unnatural natural disasters. Science News for students.

Solinska-Nowak A., Magnuszewski, A., Curl, M., French, A., Keating, A., Mochizuki, J., Liu, W., Melcher, R., Kulakowska, M., Jarzabek, J. (2018), An overview of serious games for disaster risk management – Prospects and limitations for informing actions to arrest increasing risk. In: International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction., 31(6), 1013-1029. 

water-energy-nexus

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Aleksandra Solińska-Nowak

Aleksandra Solińska-Nowak

20 min read

17.07.2018

Understanding The Nexus Approach

The nexus approach

The Latin term „nexus” refers to the act of binding something together. The concept was first mentioned in the context of resource management in 1980s, especially in connection with the UN University Food-Energy Nexus programme. It was not until the Bonn2011 Nexus Conference, however, that the nexus approach gained relevant prominence. Guided by the principle of integrating management and governance across sectors and scales, the conference argued that the nexus approach can improve water, energy and food security, at the same time supporting the transition to a green economy, which is expected to increase resource efficiency and provide greater policy coherence. 

The need for a more integrated, holistic approach both to the resource management and to the global policy in general became even more undisputable with the adaptation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. To simultaneously address the 17 major priorities, ranging from poverty and hunger alleviation, gender equality, industry development to sustainable production and environment protection, we are all required to recognize the interrelatedness and interdependence of these, partially overlapping or competing, goals, and to grasp the complex net of interactions, trade-offs and synergies that they create. Advancing towards a more stable and sustainable future depends thus on the “nexus thinking” or “systems thinking” that, instead of just looking at individual components and short-term quantitative outcomes, recognizes feedbacks and connections, and promotes concerted action and cooperation on a global scale across sectors, time and space. 


From time to time a woman in black approaches each department, passing them a thick pile of documents. Upon her arrival, the group discussions become even more stormy. It means that a new problem or request has been submitted by the society. Departments’ heads are scanning the documents quickly, trying to prioritize issues the group has to address. The time is running, members of the groups seem to be far from reaching a consensus, and a stream of new issues is still flowing. Suddenly, a collective sigh of relief may be heard – the water department voted for a policy unanimously. The head of the department leaves to pass their proposal to the council. Just in time! Almost simultaneously, a moderator rings a bell and asks the buzzing crowd for attention.

Why do we need the nexus approach

A range of socio-ecological processes, such as population growth, economic development and urbanization have contributed to an overall change in the way land and natural resources are exploited, processed and consumed. Growing demand and unsustainable management have increased man’s ecological footprint and caused modification or degradation of the natural resource base in many areas of the world. The situation is further exacerbated by pollution and human-driven climate change, which results in uncertainty and less reliable food and water supplies due to e.g. intense extreme events (such as droughts or floods). Such pressures may in long-term drive social-ecological systems across critical thresholds, leading to irreversible water, energy and food crises. To avoid this situation and align with the Sustainable Development Goals, we need a shift towards improved resource efficiency, demand management and more sustainable consumption patterns. 

The nexus approach can guide a transition to sustainability, by reducing negative impacts within the system and producing gains that outweigh the costs connected with investing in better policy and “greener” technology. Based on a better understanding of the interdependence of water, energy and food, this integrated approach identifies multilateral beneficial solutions to resource management (e.g. water and waste recycling, investing in green infrastructure or renewable sources of energy) and provide way to  meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Like most “serious” games, does not rely on rivalry or single goal completion but presents the array of challenges and opposing interests that the players have to face to determine their own priorities.

Nexus Game

Like most “serious” games, does not rely on rivalry or single goal completion but presents the array of challenges and opposing interests that the players have to face to determine their own priorities.

Messy business

While the benefits of a nexus approach for individuals and societies are unquestionable, little is known how to advance this approach, especially in a multi-stakeholder environments. Global challenges that involve many diversified groups of stakeholders taking decisions under uncertainty, require collaboration on many different levels. The complex nature of socio-ecological system is characterized by messiness, with many processes happening at the same time. Without a proper understanding of the variables, policymakers may solve one problem but unintentionally generate another one, as illustrated, e.g. by the misconceptions connected with the renewable sources of energy. Many people may think that because the renewables cannot generally be over-exploited or depleted, they do not involve any negative impacts. Meanwhile, overdependence on them may highly interfere with other nexus sectors. For example biofuels, and to some extent hydropower, demand more water per unit of energy produced compared to fossil fuels. They also involve a risk of negative energy gains. For instance, corn grown in the US for energy purposes may require more calories of input than it eventually produces. As a consequence, unless integrated in multi-use systems, biofuels may actually compete with food production for water, potentially decreasing the resilience of food production systems.

Many attempts to identify an optimal path towards sustainability fail due to over-reliance on hard data and inadequate appreciation of the diversity of ways decisions are made. People often erroneously assume that their choices stem from rationality. Meanwhile, we are never equipped with perfect information on the situation and are prone to show bias, rely on misconceptions and our individual understanding of the issue, and favor short-term gains rather than longstanding solutions. Add to it differences in human values or interest and uncertainty that underlies our future, and the complexity of collaborative decision-making becomes evident. There is myriad of perspectives the sustainability transformation may be approached and no one “optimal” answer to it exists. This raises the question: How to advance a socially accepted solution? The solution that is agreed upon by the majority of stakeholders and offers possibilities to address all the nexus sectors and their complex interactions?

The Nexus Game offers a possibility to explore the dynamics of transboundary resource management. The game setting contains two countries sharing a river basin and thus facing interlinked challenges of water, energy and food production and consumption. By assuming the roles of the prime ministers, water ministers, energy ministers or agriculture ministers, the players enter into inter-government and international negotiations in order to meet the growing people’s demands and at the same time achieve sustainable development in both countries.

Social simulation to explore the nexus approach

There are many ways the complexity of water-energy-food nexus may be explored, however the best option is always to actively engage the stakeholders. Activities that enable people to collaboratively explore alternative scenarios offer space for creativity required to discover brand new paths, and enable the participants to understand competing interests and worldviews, which is a starting point for negotiating a consensus. In this context social simulations are gaining recognition, as a tool for triggering involvement and increasing public awareness on many serious issues. Simulating the reality of socio-ecological dilemmas, they help “players” immerse in their roles and gradually discover the complex landscape of problems, responsibilities and opportunities. 

The Nexus Game is a good example, as it offers a possibility to explore the dynamics of transboundary resource management. The game setting contains two countries sharing a river basin and thus facing interlinked challenges of water, energy and food production and consumption. By assuming the roles of the prime ministers, water ministers, energy ministers or agriculture ministers, the players enter into inter-government and international negotiations in order to meet the growing people’s demands and at the same time achieve sustainable development in both countries. Their task is not easy, taking into consideration the interlinked pressures, such as the unpredictable rainfall (resulting in floods or droughts) and the shrinking natural and monetary resources. The decisions they make receive almost immediate feedback, as e.g. erroneous distribution of water tokens negatively affects power generation or agriculture production. Consequently, throughout the game, the participants may discover a number of dependencies existing across and within water, energy and food systems and learn that sustainable resource management requires forward looking and making difficult choices between meeting current needs and investing in developments technologies that may positively affect their countries’ production and consumption trends. 

As noticed by Mochizuki et al. (2018), one of the significant characteristics of the game is that the players observe not only the benefits but also trade-offs connected with reducing resource use and transition to low-emission options. For example, an improved coal power plant burns coal at a higher temperature, reducing coal input and GHG emissions but increasing water footprint. A micro-hydroelectric plant, on the other hand, although cleaner, depends highly on water availability and may be ineffective in times of drought. By highlighting these inevitable “costs” that have to be born, the players are able not only to gain a more holistic perception of the system, but also understand the dilemmas of policy-making under uncertainty.

The Nexus Game, like most “serious” games, does not rely on rivalry or single goal completion but presents the array of challenges and opposing interests that the players have to face to determine their own priorities. While exploring the simulated world, the participants soon become aware of the need to communicate and collaborate.The two countries are highly dependant on the river their share, therefore individual and common interests blurry, creating a space for negotiations and compromises. All ministers are given partial authority and may focus solely on their sectors. However, if they don’t decide to cooperate within and and across the boundaries of their country, serious problems emerge in all nexus sectors. “I have learned that energy, agriculture, water ministers must collaborate with each other to better decision making. They are interdependent systems,” as one of the players summarized the experience.

The simulation, developed in collaboration with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in cooperation with the Sustainable Energy for All initiative, has been played, i.a., with the participants of the Dresden Nexus Conference, the employees of the African Development Bank in Abidjan (Ivory Coast) and water and energy professionals in Johannesburg (South Africa) and Cairo (Egypt). Many valuable insights and reflections emerged during these sessions, as most of the players agreed that the Nexus Game offers a playful, participatory and hands-on experience, which allowed them to learn from each other, view their opinions and gain a better understanding of the nexus approach to resource management. One of the participants of the Egyptian session admitted, for example, that the immersion in the simulated world helped him “see the big picture and evaluate situations objectively not subjectively, from a different perspective that usual”. Greater empathy, perspective-taking as well as the ability to perceive global challenges not as individual obstacles but as part of the bigger system, are among most appreciated lessons drawn by the Nexus players. Another Egyptian participant stated, for example, that via exploring the game’s world, he “learned how water is the propeller of development in every field, like food production, energy, and how it affects the pollution.” All these comments confirm our belief that social simulations are powerful tools to be explored while developing long-term strategies and policies, and may definitely support sustainable practices that will ultimately lead to a more fair, stable, inclusive and satisfied societies living  in harmony with Nature.

References

Hoff, Holger. 2011. Understanding the NEXUS. Background Paper for the Bonn2011 Conference: The Water, Energy and Food Security Nexus. Stockholm: Stockholm Environment Institute.;

Mochizuki J., Magnuszewski P., Linnerooth-Bayer J. (2018) Games for Aiding Stakeholder Deliberation on Nexus Policy Issues. In: Hülsmann S., Ardakanian R. (eds) Managing Water, Soil and Waste Resources to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham

Bengaluru_Qest

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Aleksandra Solińska-Nowak

Aleksandra Solińska-Nowak

Marek Jaskólski

Marek Jaskólski

15 min read

02.03.2018

Bengaluru Quest in Alpbach

How to trigger reflection and inspire to action in an hour

Alpbach experience

It is an early afternoon in the Austrian Alps. A wooden terrace of a mountain shelter is bathed in sunlight – the yellow umbrellas above the small tables look like daffodils’ flowers. Under each umbrella, a group of five or six people is discussing something animatedly. The tables they gather around are marked “Water Department”, “Public Health & Waste department”, “Infrastructure & Energy Department”, “Business department” and “Environment department”. There is also one additional table, moved a bit aside. It is the Council, whose task is to consider the policy proposals that are brought to them by the department’ heads.


From time to time a woman in black approaches each department, passing them a thick pile of documents. Upon her arrival, the group discussions become even more stormy. It means that a new problem or request has been submitted by the society. Departments’ heads are scanning the documents quickly, trying to prioritize issues the group has to address. The time is running, members of the groups seem to be far from reaching a consensus, and a stream of new issues is still flowing. Suddenly, a collective sigh of relief may be heard – the water department voted for a policy unanimously. The head of the department leaves to pass their proposal to the council. Just in time! Almost simultaneously, a moderator rings a bell and asks the buzzing crowd for attention.

A fiasco?

The moderator is standing next to the map of Bengaluru, and he has an important message to pass: Due to poor sanitation and water treatment system, the city is heading towards a major water crisis. Although the water department’s proposal to enforce new sewage treatment standards has been approved and financial sanctions are now imposed on developers who do not provide sewage treatment plants in apartments with more than 20 houses, illegal dumping of untreated sewage and waste continue. According to the marshals, at least one case of dumping happens every day. As a result, toxic forth has appeared on several lakes, and the Bellandur Lake has burst into flames. Meanwhile, the groundwater level has dropped dramatically and the exposure to toxic substances is still rising. The potable water supply scarcity becomes even more threatening, taking into account the rapid population growth…

 

The people are shocked. For the last thirty minutes they were struggling hard to find most appropriate solutions to the burning problems of the city, yet new issues seem to pop up out of nowhere. They listen to the moderator’s summary and prognozes, trying to draw valuable conclusions. Soon a new round of negotiations will begin and they will be given a chance to correct their mistakes…

The moderator is standing next to the map of Bengaluru, and he has an important message to pass.
The moderator is standing next to the map of Bengaluru, and he has an important message to pass.

Will Bengaluru have to be evacuated soon?

The Bengaluru Quest – the social simulation played at the Alpbach-Laxenburg Group in September 2017 – was inspired by such a real problem. The City of Bengaluru (until 2006 – Bangalore) in the state of Karnataka in southern India, is one of the fastest growing cities in the world (3.25% per year). Often referred to as India’s Silicon Valley, the city is the major hub for IT companies of the country, accounting for about 30–40% of the IT exports from India. With the presence of international IT giants (such as Google, Microsoft or Yahoo) and the largest number of high-tech start-ups of any Indian city, Bengaluru seems to offer unrivalled opportunities. However, as experienced by the participants of the social simulation in Alpbach, the city is struggling with a number of serious social and environmental problems, including:

 

Social inequalities:

As might be expected, the flagship companies of the rich IT-branch are located in well-stocked city parts. Their managerial staff and qualified employees live in modern, separated from poverty and dirt, housing estates (gated communities), but the majority of the city population are poor employees of informal sector. They live in slums with unacceptable sanitation conditions, where the poverty gap increases year by year alongside the dissatisfaction of the society.

 

Water scarcity

Although Bengaluru has a lot of rain at certain times of the year, supplying its citizens with sufficient clean drinking water is difficult. There are no rivers nearby. The city used to rely mainly on wells and over 600 artificial lakes (established in 16th century). In 1971 the city started pumping water from the River Cauvery 100km from the city and 300m lower in elevation. The costly (each kilo-litre of water takes 1.88 units of electricity to transport) process is nowadays used to supply nearly 60% of the city’s demand for water. However, the forecasts are worrying as the river\’s efficiency decreases year by year. What is more, an estimated 35%t of water meant for the city is wasted in leakages in pipe systems. The artificial lakes, meanwhile, are nowadays mostly converted into housing estates or other developments. What has complicated the situation is the falling groundwater table and low-rainfall being recorded in Kodagu, the river\’s birthplace, because of reckless destruction of fragile ecology. The process of falling groundwater table is also visible at Bengaluru, where in 1990 the groundwater table was at 30 meter deep, while in 2015 it was at 300 m.

 

Water-theft

The limited drinking water access is resulting in further social inequalities and even in criminal acts, as water theft is a common practice in Bengaluru. Threat of criminal liability does not help, even after the BWSSB (Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board) introduced a penalty of six months of jail for stealing water. Only in 2016 over 80,000 households were found to have drawn unauthorized connections from the pipeline network of Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board, and this was only the tip of the iceberg, as there is no data about the amount of water that is illegally pumped from the wells.

 

Water pollution

The sewerage network covers only 265 km2 of the city (around one third). Therefore it does not have the capacity to treat all sewage. Only 30% of the sewage is treated and the rest flows untreated into the existing lakes. The process of uncontrolled waste and illegal sewage dumping limits water access still further. Most of the lakes are nowadays contaminated, filled with domestic and industrial waste (the estimated sewage generated by the city is about 1400 millions of liters per day, the installed capacity of sewage treatment plants was in 2016 only 721 MLD). It all adds to the potable water scarcity, as most of the borewell water and tap water in Bengaluru is not potable anymore.

 

Toxic waste and burning lakes

The IT sector has created the problem of toxic e-waste in the city, the estimations showing a number of 20,000 tons of e-waste that is produced in Bengaluru each year. Although a formal recycling system for e-waste was set up, 90% of it is dealt with through the informal sector, which is harder to monitor. Unaware of the necessary safety measures, some incinerate the e-waste, releasing lead, mercury and other toxins into the air – and dump the rest, allowing pollutants to infiltrate the groundwater. This unprofessional waste disposal causes not only water contamination but also direct human hazard. Sometimes the level of contamination is so high that the water reservoirs are covered with froth which catches fire.

 

Encroachment of lakes by buildings

The population density of Bengaluru increased by about 425% in just ten years thanks to growing opportunities. In 2017, there were 17,000 people per square kilometer, compared to 4,012 ten years before. Bengaluru is now growing faster than ever, crossing the 10-million mark in 2013. To satisfy the demand for housing, most of the Bangalore artificial lakes have got encroached (legally and illegally) and converted to developmental activities.

 

Lack of greenery and air pollution

The process of city growth and sprawling development encroached the natural areas causing their radical decrease. The disappearance of green areas dramatically reduces their positive impact on heat and air pollution in urban zone. Traffic and uncontrolled emission of industrial exhaust is the reason why Bengaluru was ranked 63rd among 168 cities for PM 2.5 levels in 2015-16 (air pollution), far below standards prescribed by the World Health Organization.

All these problems have lead some scientists and researchers to conclude that the city of Bengaluru will become unlivable in a couple of years – with an alarming growth of built–up area, almost no potable water and the vegetation reduced to minimum, it will simply consume itself.

Can social simulations help us understand global challenges better?

The Bengaluru case offers an excellent example of a complex, multifaceted problem, whose understanding would require months or even years of extensive research and thorough analysis of variables and interconnections. Meanwhile, in case od Alpbach experience, the “players” had only an hour. What is more, rather than studying diagrams and facts, they got actively involved in the process of mock policy making. By assuming new roles of the city council and its different departments, they entered a simulated reality of a struggling city whose fate was left in their hands. An inflow of requests, petitions and letters from unsatisfied inhabitants reflected the multitude of overlapping and contradicting interests and needs the Bengaluru citizens really face. A division into rounds created additional tension, as the time pressure made the decision process even more hectic.

From time to time, signs of frustration could be observed, as the effort put in diagnosing a situation, framing critical issues, developing relevant policies, and passing them through the legislative process did not bring desirable outcomes. The city was evolving according to participants decisions – the map of the city was constantly updated by the moderator. And although the participants did they best to address all the urgencies, new problems always appeared, covering the map with warning signs.

It may seem from the above example that social simulations are designed to confront the participants with their incompetence or lack of strategic thinking. This is not the case. Social simulations throw participants in at the deep end to let them experience the complexity behind many global problems. Relying on a simple mechanism of cause-effect relation and the moderator\’s instant feedback, the Bengaluru Quest finally helped the participants discover the underlying interconnections and perceive the country’s situation more holistically.

Did they manage to secure the Bengaluru’s future in an hour? The answer is no. Yet, this was not the aim of the activity. Social simulations do not offer ready-made solutions to global problems. What they do is help people navigate the complexity behind such problems and to understand that an effective counteraction requires collaboration, smooth information flow, and ability to make trade-offs. Many participants of the Alpbach experience hadn’t heard about the Bengaluru’s situation before. They were shocked to hear that the “game” they “played” is in fact rooted in real data, and that the problems they were trying to address may soon lead India’s Silicon Valley to destruction. The Bengaluru Quest enabled them to immerse in this reality for 60 dreadful minutes and draw valuable conclusions.

Social simulations throw participants in at the deep end to let them experience the complexity behind many global problems. On the picture: Nexus Game, another great example of social simulation.
Social simulations throw participants in at the deep end to let them experience the complexity behind many global problems. On the picture: Nexus Game, another great example of social simulation.

Going beyond the Bengaluru case

The Bengaluru Quest is thus an environment for exploring behavioral, social and institutional challenges connected with sustainability transformation. By painful yet thought-provoking confrontation with a real-world case, participants may face a complex, ambiguous, and uncertain reality of modern policy making. The interactive and dynamic character of this process can lead to a deeper understanding and insights of a universal relevance. What can we do differently to avoid similar mistakes? How to ensure more safe and sustainable future for all? What is my individual responsibility in this process? These are all questions that emerged during a short session in the Austrian Alps.