IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2022 - 98

Commentary
Commentary
A Serious Role-Playing Game as a
Pedagogical Innovation to Strengthen
Flood Resilience
Evalyna Bogdan
School of Administrative Studies
Faculty of Lib eral Arts and Professional Studies
York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada
Shaieree Cottar
Department of Geography and
Environmental Management
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada
 Flooding is a global concern with an increasing
number of floods and damages because of a
changing climate. This has prompted the development
of innovative approaches to flood resilience,
both in terms of the technical aspects of flood risk
management (FRM) and broader social initiatives
to improve flood risk governance (decision-making
and collaborations) among stakeholders. FRM
encompasses policies and practices developed to
prevent, manage, and reduce the impact of disasters
across the disaster phases: preparedness, response,
recovery, and mitigation. In this commentary, we
discuss how game-based learning on flooding can
be used with students and stakeholders as a pedagogical
innovation to learn about the complexity of
flooding and enhance flood resilience-the capacity
to resist, absorb, and recover from floods and to
transform and adapt to future flood risks [1], [2].
Flooding is Canada's most costly and frequent
disaster. Historically, the dominant strategy for
addressing flooding in Canada has been by " fighting
water " with physical " hard " infrastructure such
as dams and dikes, which emphasize engineering
and technical solutions, in contrast to a " living with
water " approach or more sustainable and socially
equitable solutions [3]. Scholars critique physical
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2022.3197124
Date of current version: 16 September 2022.
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0278-0097/22©2022 IEEE
infrastructure approaches as ineffective because
flooding routinely exceeds defense structures and
disaster assistance and removes the incentive for
property owners to reduce their risk [4]. Governance
scholars also critique the emphasis on infrastructure
approaches because spending scarce
public resources on structural defenses to permit
development on flood-prone lands raises questions
about fairness and equity [5]. At the same time, few
Canadians know their flood risk, highlighting poor
transparency and accountability.
In addition to Canada's reliance on infrastructure
solutions, another challenge is that decision-making
processes in Canada often fail to provide sufficient
interaction among stakeholders to understand different
viewpoints or value tensions [6]. However, difficult
conversations are needed because the causes
and consequences of flooding are embedded in
complex sociopolitical contexts involving diverse
stakeholders with conflicting interests and power
imbalances. The flooding problem is also difficult to
solve because it is a wicked problem, meaning it is
ill-defined, complex, and not amenable to a definitive
solution [7]. Traditional engineering education
relies on well-defined and structured problems and
does not adequately prepare students for understanding
the complex social dimensions [8].
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2022

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