Factsheet: Splash

Definition

Water resource management is an integral policy issue. Over the past fifty years policy making and water resource management has changed from a strictly technical issue to an issue involving society as a whole, with both urban and rural planning agencies and stakeholders.

Considering society as a subdomain, we address water resource management as the interaction of four subdomains: Society, Atmosphere, (Water on) Land, and (Open) Water.

Splash! attempts to capture and simulate these interactions between society and the physical environment. Society is represented by socio-economic sectors, such as industry, agriculture, and urban areas. In addition, different interest groups represent the values of these sectors and react to your actions.

Splash! describes a fictional world, but can be loaded with real data to study a specific area;
The player is confronted with realistic stakeholders and their demands;
Splash! captures expert knowledge in simulation models, which gives a real and trustworthy simulation;
The player gets immediate response on actions and effects for short and long terms are reported.

Application objectives

Players try to manage a society with problems related to land use and water management with emphasis on water stress issues (droughts, floods). Playing Splash! makes users familiar with various aspects of water management and makes them aware of the interests of other stakeholders.

Pertinent participation process phase(s)

	1.	Starting organization
	2.	Actors analysis, context
	3.	Diagnostic of the current situation
	4.	Search of solutions
	5.	Implementation, evaluation

Application method

The present version is a single player game. Future versions will be adaptable for an area and (probably) multi-users.

Application example(s)

The Splash! prototype was demonstrated at the Second World Water Forum in The Hague, Netherlands.

Splash! has been used in courses at high school level and BSc level (University).

Example tools

Splash! is an example (see http://www.serc.nl/play2learn/products/splash/index.htm).
NitroGenius is a multi-player, multi-stakeholder game about solving nitrogen problems. A free single-player (demo) version is available: http://www.serc.nl/play2learn/products/nitrogenius/frameset.htm

AquaStress contact(s)

Onno Roosenschoon , Alterra (onno.roosenschoon@wur.nl )

Reference

Meijer, S. and G. Hofstede, 2004. Simulations and Simulation Games in Agro and Health Care, Wageningen University, Wageningen, KLICT Project TR-214, 26 pp.

Wachowicz, M. , Creator Vullings, L.A.E., Creator Broek, M., van den Creator, Ligtenberg, A., 2003, Games for interactive spatial planning: SPLASH a prototype strategy game about water management, Centrum Geo-informatie, Laboratorium voor Geo-informatiekunde en remote sensing. http://www.alterra.wur.nl/internet/webdocs/pdffiles/AlterraRapporten/AlterraRapport667.pdf