RÃ C: A Serious Agent-Based Simulation Game to Drive Discussion on Waste Management in Vietnamese Irrigation Systems

Waste management is a major issue in Vietnam, particularly in irrigation systems, where it has a profound impact on agriculture, which in turn also generates a significant amount of wastewater production. While irrigation users, residents and decision-makers are increasingly concerned about these issues, the implementation of collective solutions to these problems is almost non-existent. The challenge then is to propose a serious game that can open the dialogue on this issue, allowing stakeholders to envision shared and sustainable waste management solutions. To open the dialogue on waste management in rural areas in Vietnam, we propose Rà C (meaning “waste†in Vietnamese), an agent-based serious game using a concrete case study on waste management in the Bắc Hưng Hải irrigation system (Vietnam). Rà C places the stakeholders in the role of several village leaders who must ensure a sufficient level of agricultural production while minimizing both solid and wastewater pollution in order to maintain a quality label that is essential for selling agricultural products on the national market. The model was fully implemented using the open-source agent-based simulation platform GAMA. Rà C was used during four workshop sessions with farmers and village leaders in the Bắc Hưng Hải irrigation system. It allowed them to discuss and promote debate on waste management in their area, and to understand these stakeholders’ expectations on participatory approaches that focus on cohesion and emergence of leadership rather than on the will to express individual opinions. The results showed that the game was successful in helping players to discuss the issue of waste management. Future work in the short term will focus on continuing to organize game workshops in order to better assess the impact of the game on waste management coordination.