Getting Ahead of the Game: Experiential Learning for Groundwater Governance in Ethiopia

Game-based experiential learning intervention

We adapted the groundwater game from Meinzen-Dick et al. (2018), which was developed for and piloted in India. The game simulates the connection between individual crop choices and groundwater levels which are shared by all community members, capturing the tradeoff between greater economic return from higher level of groundwater consumption in the short term and the depletion of the resource critical for not only productive use but also domestic needs in the long term.

Individual players choose to irrigate either Crop A, a local crop that requires low water input but also yields less income, or Crop B, a local water-intensive crop that yields higher income. These choices in turn lead to simulated changes in groundwater levels for the whole group. The game consists of multiple rounds, each representing a year, with the water table changing over the years depending on players’ choices and factoring in groundwater recharge.¹ If all players choose Crop A in a given round, the water would replenish back to the original level at the beginning of the round, but if all players choose Crop B successively for 4 rounds, there will be no more water available for productive use, ending the game. The game ends either when the water level reaches a “red zone” at 0 units after crop choice decisions where water can no longer be extracted for irrigation, or after 7 rounds if players manage to keep the aquifer above this level. Throughout the game, players make their decisions individually in private. In the first 7 rounds, players are not allowed to communicate. Another set of (up to 7) rounds follows where players are allowed to communicate. Finally, in the third set of (up to 7) rounds, players can discuss and the group may decide whether to elect rules and which rules. Facilitators refrained from making suggestions and groups were encouraged to discuss and implement their own strategies. This design was motivated by evidence that experiential learning is expected to be more effective when participants decide on rule election on their own (as opposed to the facilitators suggesting particular rules) and try them out in a low-risk environment (Falk et al., 2023). In each pilot site, two concurrent game sessions were held, one for men and one for women.

The game was tweaked to fit to the overall biophysical context of the Butajira region, such as by adjusting crop choices and aquifer levels, rather than to the detailed conditions in each community. This ensured the game would remain relevant and scalable to adjacent communities yet simple to facilitate and understand to avoid losing participant focus, given the tradeoff between simplicity and relatability (Janssen et al. 2023). Further, the last set of rounds on rules-setting by groups was added as a new within-subject treatment of the current study aimed at enhancing the learning experience. The number of rounds to be played in each of the three within-subject treatments or sets was not disclosed to avoid the end-round effect, though we do not rule out the possibility of participants making “guesses” about the number of rounds once they have played the first set. If the limit of seven rounds is known, players could cooperate to allow each player to grow a water saving crop twice and a higher-income water-intensive crop five times; a win-win situation.

An important component of the intervention is the subsequent community debriefing held after the game. For this, all community members (including players and non-players) are invited to discuss lessons and insights from the game, how the game relates to their own experiences and challenges regarding groundwater, and what community actions are needed to ensure the sustainability of groundwater. A spillover of learning from game players to non-player community members is expected through this process of sharing and collective reflection on the game experience.

Study area, sampling and game adaptions

The study was conduced in the SNNP region near Butajira town south-east of Addis Ababa (Figure 1). A scoping study informed the design of the pilot intervention and construction of the sampling frame. First, the selection of the Butajira-Enseno area as the study focal region was based on a hydrological assessment² of the groundwater characteristics (including aquifer properties and groundwater recharge), to select areas where shallow groundwater aquifers are renewable (replenished by rainfall) and relatively localized such that actions taken by communities on groundwater governance would likely have an impact that can be felt by local users. This also helped adapt the game’s narrative and simulated water tables to increase relevance to local communities.

Figure 1

Given the focal region, we then consulted with the Department of Agricultural and Natural Resource Development (DANRD) of the Gurage Zone to identify four suitable woredas (districts) in the south-east part of the Gurage Zone surrounding the Meki River catchment with greater groundwater irrigation potential: South Sodo, East Meskan, Meskan, and Mareko. In each selected woreda, we collected information on the distribution of groundwater irrigation users, main crop types, and other socioeconomic information to gain more understanding of the context through interviewing woreda agricultural experts, extension workers, groundwater users, and local community leaders. Further game adaptations were made to identify locally relevant water saving and water consumptive crops.

Finally, we identified kebeles³ in each woreda where there is widespread and increasing use of groundwater, especially in the dry season. A Kebele is the lowest administrative structure in Ethiopia, typically a cluster of villages. Our sampling frame included 39 kebeles in 4 woredas, from which we drew a random proportional sample of kebeles from each woreda, resulting in 34 kebeles. We then randomly sorted the 34 kebeles to extract 15 treatment⁴ kebeles and two reserve kebeles. We selected the village with the highest groundwater use for irrigation in each kebele, with assistance from a local coordinator. Game participants, 5 women and 5 men in each pilot village, were randomly selected from community members who were available on the day of the intervention, with priority given to those identified by village leaders as groundwater irrigators. Baseline focus group discussions (FGDs) were held in all 15 kebeles with other non-player participants. For the selection of endline FGD participants, priority was given to those who participated in the baseline FGDs.

The intervention and baseline data collection took place in March 2021. First, we conducted the FGD to capture the baseline contextual information and perspectives regarding irrigation water sources, existing community institutions for governance of natural resources, specifically water-related institutions, and community-level mental models regarding groundwater resources. Game sessions were held concurrently with the FGD in each village. The field team took notes of the discussions that took place between players during the game, including any agreed upon rules, sanctions and violations during the game. A survey of individual participants immediately before and immediately after the game provided both qualitative and quantitative data on characteristics of the players, their households and farms including current irrigation practices, individual mental models regarding groundwater resources and their management, and perceptions about levels of trust and cooperation between community members. After the game, we collected qualitative information from the community-wide debriefing discussions of the game experience and its relevance to water governance. Endline FGDs were held in the treatment sites in September 2021.

Analysis

We adopt a mixed methods approach comprised of quantitative analysis of game data and pre- and post-game player surveys, and qualitative analysis of FGDs, community debriefings, and notes from game discussions. This approach allows us to quantitively assess how pro-social behavior in the game (i.e., choosing water save crop) are affected by group characteristics, different within-subject treatments, and gender. Insights from the qualitative analysis allowed us to first assess the context and factors that shape the community mental models on groundwater and resource governance, take a deeper dive into game behavior, and finally curate the key lessons and new perceptions taken away by the whole community after the game experience.

Qualitative data from FGDs, games, and community debriefings were transcribed and then analyzed through inductive thematic analysis and coding, with the aim of identifying frequencies of words and themes in the participants’ contributions. For quantitative data from the games and player surveys, we conducted regression analysis to explore the effects of within-subject treatments (i.e., non-communication, communication, and group rule-setting) and group characteristics on water extraction in the game at the group level in each round. Specifically, we focus on one (bounded) dependent variable ‘share of group members making water saving crop choices in the round’, for which we estimated a Generalized Linear Model (GLM), controlling for group and village-level fixed effects. To explore possible gender differences in responses, we ran the model for male and female groups separately. A Levene’s test for homogeneity of variance indicated that there is not a statistically significant difference in the variance in between female and male groups in the dependent variable. Dichotomous variables for kebele were included to control for village-level fixed effects. A complete list of variables and summary statistics can be found in the annex. Standard errors were robust to misspecification and intra-group correlations.

Immediate effect: Lessons learned and shifts in mental models

Both the pre- and post-game surveys and post-game debriefings indicate that the game had a direct effect on changing immediate mental models and beliefs regarding biophysical groundwater characteristics (such as its nature as a depletable CPR), users’ roles in groundwater resource sustainability and governance, and the need for institutional arrangements for groundwater governance.

Pre-and post-game player mental models

Players were asked to agree or disagree with statements related to governance of water resources immediately before and immediately after the game (Figure 2). For most statements perceptions changed after the game, with more players agreeing that current groundwater use would affect resource sustainability, there is a need for surface and groundwater rules, and there is a need to act collectively to govern groundwater. Further, participants perceived potential declines in groundwater availability on own farms linked to other farmers extracting groundwater. Statements linked to collective actions to establish and maintain community water structures did not change after the game.

Figure 2

Players were asked before and after the game what they believed should be done to improve groundwater availability. Figure 3 shows the aggregate changes in men and women players’ answers, highlighting gender differences. Digging deeper wells was the main solution identified to improve groundwater availability. Following the game, fewer people mentioned digging deeper wells as a solution to water shortages, although the number was still quite substantial, especially among women: 25 (compared to 40) for women and 11 (compared to 22) for men. A second change was the suggestion by participants to use crop rotation as well as collective action for improving groundwater availability. Before the game and in baseline FGDs, considering planting water saving crops was not mentioned. The main reasons driving crop choice were household consumption and market price, followed by financial viability of crops; irrigation water availability was not a factor.

Figure 3

Additionally, in the post-game survey, many men (but few women) maintained the importance of afforestation and soil and water management techniques as ways to improve groundwater availability, possibly as men are more exposed to government-led soil and water conservation programs, making men more aware of these solutions than women. By contrast, several women maintained that proper well maintenance and cleaning increases groundwater availability.

Lessons learned and reflections

During the community-wide debriefing, players reflected on and discussed various learnings from the game. One of the most mentioned themes was realizing that groundwater is a depletable resource. This represents a stark and immediate shift in mental models. As a male player related “we used to think that groundwater is something that will never dry, but now we know it can be depleted.” Another common response was learning that groundwater is a shared resource. Understanding the shared character of groundwater can be challenging due to the invisibility of the resource. A female player said “we learned that groundwater is a shared resource which we all can get from one aquifer. We used to think that we have our own independent groundwater source since we have independent wells.”

Realizing the common and depletable nature of groundwater, players and community members identified collective action and crop rotation as ways to manage the resource more sustainably. A player mentioned “after playing this game, we realized that one farmer’s water consumption pattern has an effect on the entire system, and that we must make a collective decision and work together.” Players also commonly mentioned learning from the game that different crops have different water uses, and about which crops save water and which crops are water consumptive.

In most communities, discussants talked about coming to realize the importance of communication and rules for groundwater governance, reflecting that the progression between game treatments (with and without communication and rules) successfully gets the message across and contributes to changing the mental models of groundwater irrigators. For example, a player said “I learned the importance of communication; without communication, we were hurting each other…we finished the groundwater so quickly since most of us were growing the water-intensive crop…[In game 2 and 3,] we managed to use our groundwater for more years.”

The post-game survey complemented the qualitative findings, highlighting gendered trends in lessons learned from the game. Many players, particularly men, reported realizing the importance of collective action and communication, as well as the need for rules (Figure 4). Further, more men than women reported learning that groundwater is a shared resource. Both women and men reported learning how to manage the groundwater resource sustainably, which crops are water-intensive and which require less water, and the link between crop choice and groundwater availability. The latter was mentioned more often by women. Additionally, some players, more frequently men, mentioned the existing trade-off between crop returns and groundwater availability, as the crops that have higher monetary returns are also the ones requiring more water.

Figure 4

Medium-term effects on mental models and retention of lessons learned

Game behavior and group outcomes

Analyzing in-game player choices, we find that the total amount of water consumed for irrigation declined as the rounds advanced in all three sets of the game (Figure 5). Female participants generally used slightly more water than their male counterparts, while the game treatment of group election of rules led to slightly less overall water consumption, particularly in female groups.⁶

Figure 5

Consistent with our expectation, there is significant learning with each round of the game that is played and allowing discussions among players (communication game) helped improve cooperation toward pro-environmental behaviour (i.e. increasing the selection of water saving crops and reducing water consumption), as compared to the non-communication game (Table 1). Specifically, players chose more water-saving crops in the rounds when communication was allowed, resulting in overall reduction of water used for irrigation. Compared to the non-communication game, players on average also chose more water saving crops and thus consumed less irrigation water in the rounds when groups were prompted to elect rules.⁷

Strength of relationships among group members is positively correlated with pro-environmental behaviour (see annex for extended table). Groups with more participants that got along with others in the group (an indicator of potential cooperation) choose more water saving crops, consistent with expectations that groups whose members enjoy a better/closer relationship are more cooperative, resulting in reduced water extraction.

Examining the dependent variables by gender, we found that rounds with communication had a significant effect only on female groups, whereas group election of rules resulted in both female and male groups choosing more water saving crops. A higher water level at the start of the round significantly decreased the selection of water saving crops among male groups while female groups adapted more water conserving behaviors in response to higher water consumption in the previous round.

Experiential learning

Congruent with the findings of den Haan and van der Voort (2018), we found that the games resulted in different kinds of experiential learnings, including cognitive, normative, and relational learning. Cognitive learnings in this context refer to understanding of linkages between individual choices (i.e., crop choices) and payoff, and joint outcomes for the group, including monetary and resource outcomes, and how these play out on a temporal scale (i.e., tradeoffs between higher earnings in the short term and resource depletion, and thus loss of the income source, in the long term). Normative learnings include the recognition of the need for rules, while relational learning encompasses recognition of the value of communication and the importance of collective action. As van Vugt et al. (2014) argue, people may not understand the impact of their actions unless they are clearly visible, heard or sensed.

The sensory experience of the game is particularly beneficial in the case of groundwater resources that are typically ‘invisible’ to resource users. The perceived importance of rules after the game and at endline was evident. Many communities shifted from believing that groundwater rules or restrictions on groundwater use were not necessary, and in many cases opposing the idea of rules due to the belief that groundwater on one’s land is private property. While most communities did not have water related rules or arrangements, surface water institutions were more prevalent and accepted, including prohibiting blocking, rediverting or impeding the flow of rivers, since it was perceived as a CPR. Mental models also shifted away from solely considering the accessibility of groundwater (e.g. digging deeper wells), to also considering the overall supply of the resource.

Social learning opportunities at the community debriefing

While individual experiential learning can be observed and can be useful for changing mental models, it is less likely to change norms or rules (Shelton et al., 2018). The community-wide debriefings are thus designed for social learning to affect community-level action, and were found to be a vital part of this experiential learning process (Meinzen-Dick et al. 2018; Falk et al. 2023). They provide a chance for spillover learning effects to community members who did not experience the game first-hand, as well as brainstorming possible approaches for resource governance from within the community. Indeed, in intervention villages the process changed perceptions and stirred formal and informal community discussions on locally relevant solutions to groundwater governance problems, including promoting more equitable access.

The three suggestions mentioned most by communities were to maintain a ‘reasonable’ distance between wells, set community rules, and share wells and groundwater rather than digging new individual wells. Further, introducing shifts for groundwater irrigation, and practicing soil and water conservation activities were also commonly mentioned. Other ideas for improving groundwater availability included practicing crop rotation, saving rainwater and standardizing well depths. While building on such homegrown ideas is key for intrinsic motivations (Janssen et al. 2023), equipping communities with scientific information on their effectiveness to ensure that when applied such institutions would lead to the desired sustainability outcomes is also important.

After-game reflections can also bring local concerns to the forefront, which are important considerations for creating an enabling environment to improve groundwater governance. For example, a few communities highlighted the issue of equity in groundwater access particularly when mechanized well-drilling and pumps are used compared to hand-digging and manual water-lifting. A participant noted: “It won’t be fair and right if one digs using machines while the other digs manually…deep wells should be built at kebele level from which all the community members can have fair and equal access to groundwater.” Some participants believed rules should be extended to limiting the intensive water withdrawals by investors who rent land in the dry season to end the “unfair distribution” of groundwater use.

Considerations for future experiential learning interventions

While debriefing discussions are instrumental for spillover effects, we observed notable differences in players’ and non-players’ engagement. Participants from FGDs who did not play the game were mostly silent during the debriefing and in some cases did not seem to be following well. This is a crucial part of the dynamic to achieve learning on a larger community scale, as resources are often limited, allowing only a handful of people per village to experience playing the game. Encouraging available community members to silently observe the games in real-time can provide an opportunity for wider social learning effects. This has been attempted in India,⁸ but may necessitate having more facilitators to manage any outside influence that can affect player choices. Purposeful rather than random selection of players (e.g. choosing more influential community member/elders who are more likely to spread the word) may be another option to enhance spillover effects, though such selection process may be seen as unfair especially if some forms of compensation of participants is used and thus disenfranchising other community members from active participation in the subsequent debriefing discussion. Another potential pitfall of purposeful player selection is the continued reinforcement of underrepresentation of traditionally marginalized groups.

Wouters et al. (2013) find that multiple training sessions improved the outcome of participatory games. Indeed, some endline FGD participants seemed oblivious or did not recall the outcomes and purpose of the game six months later, particularly those who were present in the debriefing but did not play the game. Many participants suggested that the game/intervention should be repeated, otherwise the lessons learned would be forgotten. A refresher can be helpful for maximizing benefits from experiential learning, particularly for medium- and long-term retention of messages.

Many game participants took away learnings related to the particular crops used in the game and their water requirements, yields and incomes, instead of considering them as illustrative of the link between individual practices and implications for groundwater tables. Such literal learning lessons have important implications for researchers and practitioners to consider in future implementations of game interventions, to ensure that the communities receive practical advice that is useful for their context and needs, while stressing the illustrative nature of the game.

Supplementary tools for experiential learning

Recognizing the importance of having groundwater rules is insufficient on its own for bringing about the establishment of rules for both appropriation and provision of groundwater, which stresses the importance of long-term and technical engagement with communities to support capacity strengthening for collective action. Indeed, endline FGD results suggest that one of the reasons communities did not develop groundwater-related rules is that they require assistance from ‘experts’ on what rules would be suitable to sustain their groundwater.

Our pilot intervention offered an initial rapid and scalable experiential learning opportunity about the collective action challenges of groundwater and to raise awareness as a key first step to prime mindsets. A complimentary next step of deeper, longer-term and targeted engagement with communities is necessary, where more targeted games are embedded in larger intervention packages that include technical assistance, partnering with local extension officers. This is key to provide communities with up-to-date, accurate hydrological assessments, crop water requirements and other management options that have implications for both augmenting water supply and reducing consumption. In India, for instance, the games are implemented as part of a package of tools, including local aquifer mapping to improve understanding of water availability, a Crop Water Budgeting tool that computes the water consumption of different crop combinations, based on local conditions, and tools for siting water harvesting structures to increase recharge (FES, 2021).

The national program that promotes engaging rural villages in soil and water conservation activities enhanced the understanding of farmers in Ethiopia about the adverse effects of natural resource degradation on groundwater and surface water availability and the potential contributions of integrated watershed management (Haregeweyn et al., 2015). Thus, most communities referred to soil and water conservation activities such as afforestation and planting certain types of trees to improve groundwater availability even before the game intervention. However, evidence on afforestation improving groundwater availability in the dry season is mixed, with the majority of studies finding a decline in overall water yield (Acreman et al., 2021). While this is beyond the scope of the current study, we stress two points. First, technical advice regarding natural resource management given to communities must be transparent and evidence-based. Otherwise, we risk losing communities’ trust if the promised benefit is not realized. Second, linking already existing pro-environment or pro-social initiatives with game interventions can help expedite and expand on community capacity for groundwater self-governance, provided that the rational and science behind these initiatives are clearly communicated to communities.