Developing and playing a Role-Playing Game in the Kat River Valley: KatAware. Reflexions on the process : WRC Project n° K5/1496

Abstract

Within the Water Research Commission (WRC) project: "A stakeholder driven process to develop a catchment management plan for the Kat River Valley", the Companion Modeling (ComMod) approach (Barreteau et al, 2003) was adopted to help the local Water Users Association (WUA) in the task of defining a Catchment Management Plan (CMP) for the Kat River Valley. Two platforms, a multi-agent model named KatAWARE (Farolfi and Bonté, 2005; 2006) and a Role-Playing Game (Farolfi, 2006), were constructed in conjunction with local stakeholders through the ComMod approach. This document reports on the use of the Role-Playing Game (RPG) KatAWARE developed through the ComMod process. It must be underlined that this report does not provide guidelines on how to play the KatAWARE RPG, as this information is contained in Farolfi (2006). Rather, more general considerations on the opportunity to use a RPG within the studied context and more in general the importance of RPG in participatory research and Companion Modelling projects is discussed. The following chapters refer to the Kat River ComMod experience; nevertheless some lessons learned during the described case study could be generalized to other possible applications in South Africa or elsewhere. The document is organized as follows: Chapter one recaps quickly the main characteristics of the KatAWARE RPG in its two versions; Chapter two illustrates the outcomes of the second session of the RPG played with the Kat River WUA in March 2006; whilst chapter three concludes and provides recommendations. The appendix provides some technical information on how to install and operate the KatAWARE model that backs the RPG. (Résumé d'auteur