The 3rd stakeholder workshop for the Reno river basin took place in Bologna (Italy) on November 20th.
The event gathered the main actors of this living lab, including: water authorities and regulators, farmers, industry representatives, private citizens, and experts of the agricultural sector and environmental protection in the Emilia-Romagna region.
Stakeholders participated in a serious game, a model-based tool that TRANSCEND is using to support real-life decision-making processes.
In the serious game, stakeholders were divided into four groups, all representing farmers, and were called to decide on specific agronomic strategies: business as usual, use of less water demanding crops, use of groundwater. The game, fed with economical, hydrological and climatic models developed for the Reno basin, simulated the effects of their decision under moderate, intermediate, and high-emission scenarios. Round after round they received additional information on water availability and groundwater conditions, to support their strategies, still having to deal with a lot of uncertainty.
The activity was engaging and led to highly relevant discussions in the second part of the day, introduced by a presentation on socio-hydrology, which fostered a critical and high-level discussion,
The feedback provided on the game itself will be embedded in the next serious game, that will be, in this way, co-created with local stakeholders.
The discussion on transformational adaptation policies mainly focused on how to concretize the ideas developed so far, for example: While the shift to less water-intensive crops is fundamental, how can we advance crop planning through incentives? Or how can we implement participatory water balance tools in the Reno river basin?
These and more key points will be addressed in the next months, to be finalized in the fourth and last local stakeholder workshop.