Players can change settings in the game to observe the interactions between different components in the urban water cycle and their effects on water availability, energy use, material recovery, environmental health, and costs.
The result is an online browser-based single player Serious Game that tells “stories”, showing different ways the urban water cycle can be affected by enabling various water technologies inside households and at the infrastructural level. The effects of the change initiated by the player are immediately analysed in the background via a System Dynamic Model. This model is specifically developed using the Julia programming language, showing simulation results over 20 years in under a second. Participants can explore how their choices change the water quality and environmental flow in a river and impact on the health of the ecosystem. Similarly, the energy footprint resulting from their choices can be visualised, including an emphasis on wastewater treatment with options to recycle not just nutrients but also metals. The decision can lead to surprising savings in both energy and carbon emissions. Actions have multiple consequences, for example, enabling a nature based solution for urban drainage to lower the volume of water going to wastewater treatment plants after a heavy rainfall, will decrease the amount of energy used for treatment and the number of untreated discharges in the river, but will also increase installation and operational costs.
Source: Khoury, M. 2021. The NEXTGEN Serious Game: learning about Circular Economy of water in an urban catchment. Additional drinking water sources and circular economy, Risk & Resilience. AIWW 2021.
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