SimBethel: Designing a serious game on flood risk management and housing/urban development for the most urbanized islands of the California delta

SimBethel: Designing a serious game on flood risk management and housing/urban development for the most urbanized islands of the California delta

Hasman, R.
Klerk, W.J.
Schoemaker, M.A.
Smits, E.

Civil Engineering and Geosciences

Hydraulic Engineering

2013-01-14

Master project report. A serious game on flood risk management and housing/urban development for the most urbanised island of the California coast. In the California Delta the flood protection for most islands is not up to the required standards. This is also the case for Bethel Island, one of the most urbanized islands in this region. The Bethel Island Improvement District (BIMID), the local agency concerned with maintaining and upgrading levees is seriously hampered by money shortage and a lack of support by both higher government and residents of the island. The failure probability for the levees on Bethel Island, caused by seismic events and high water levels, is estimated at 8% per year although no major floods have happened for about a century. Statewide environmental issues such as increasing salinization and pressure on wildlife habitat play an important role in flood risk management for Bethel Island, several reports suggest that failures caused by seismic events which are likely to happen in the near future could paralyze the freshwater supply for the Central Valley and urban areas in the Bay area and Southern California. Currently Bethel Island has around 2,600 residents and especially in summer time many tourists are visiting the island. The island has several marinas and most houses are built on or close to the levee. The levees are to be upgraded to the PL84-99 standard according to the Five Year plan (2011 - 2016), however this was already initiated 15 years ago and the improvements are not on schedule. The levees are not at the required standard to be eligible for emergency aid by FEMA in case of a flood, so there is a problem with weak levees and if they fail there will be no emergency aid to help recover from the disaster. Serious gaming is a tool to give insight in decision processes of investing in levee maintenance and upgrades over a long time period and raising awareness amongst people involved such as residents and potential project developers. Therefore, it would be an excellent tool to take a look at some possible future strategies of Bethel Island, and facilitate a discussion with people involved about these strategies to initiate some movement in the current deadlock situation. Hence: SimBethel, a serious game about flood protection and risk management on Bethel Island. The SimBethel game is based on the Multi Layered Safety-game by Matti Janssen, which simulates development in a Dutch polder. This game is adapted and several aspects such as the factors time, money, levee strength and seismic events have been added. The game consists of a board game supported by a flood risk model and an economic model; certain specific problems on Bethel Island are discussed by the use of chance cards. The game is played by 3 players, each representing a stakeholder on Bethel Island: BIMID, project developers and the residents. The flood risk model is based on the Dutch VNK2-method, a state-of-the-art method for assessing flood risks in the Netherlands. However due to a lack of detailed information, especially on the levee conditions this method could not be fully implemented. In the game BIMID can execute levee projects to decrease the risk, however costs money which they can achieve by subsidy or taxes. The economic model simulates the money flow between the different players and other stakeholders. The framework of a board game supported by two models was tested on whether the project goals could be achieved with this game. It was concluded that the model had so many variables that the game was not suitable for raising awareness amongst residents. Therefore a simplified version of the game was made called 'SimBethel Educational'. This game is based on Monopoly and players are each in control of a levee reach. The game is won by the player who has raised his levee reach to the highest level first. Players can fund this with tax money collected from house owners and subsidy. To create more tax revenue players can build more houses, thus creating more income. The consequence is however that the risk is increased and in case of a flooding, players encounter more damage. This version of the game is also tested and was received with enthusiasm by both testers and Bethel Island residents. It was also observed that the game indeed raised awareness and created a better understanding on the principles of flood protection, risk and economic development amongst the residents who played the game. In conclusion, the SimBethel game has shown to be a tool to give a good overview of the different problems on Bethel Island for professionals. However the game is fairly complicated for first time players. This version of the game has been altered to become a better understandable version, but has not been properly tested yet. The SimBethel Educational game has shown first signs of being a very useful tool in raising awareness amongst Bethel Island residents. This game needs to be fine-tuned and tested more extensively but after that, developing the game for a larger audience such as other islands or polders specifically or schools in general could be a serious option.

serious game
flood risk
flood protection
California

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TU Delft, section Hydraulic Engineering

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