Companion Modelling for resilient water management: Stakeholders’ perceptions of water dynamics and collective learning at catchment scale

The Mekong river region is facing rapid changes in land and water uses which involve unevenly distributed costs and benefits among various stakeholders, and raise the issue of the resilience of ecosystems and livelihoods in the Mekong river basin. In this region, the production of knowledge on water resource dynamics is mainly based on scientific hydraulic models which struggle to integrate ecological and social impacts of water dynamics at a river basin scale. Our work aims at taking into account a diversity of viewpoints and knowledge sources on water dynamics and their impacts, in order to promote dialogue among stakeholders. In this paper we propose a conceptual framework and a methodology to promote resilient water management, and present the first results of our work in the Nam Theun – Nam Kading (NT-NKD) River Basin, a Mekong river sub-basin located in Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Key basin stakeholders from the public and private sectors at multiple levels were brought together, including those from the hydropower industry, research and administration, as well as local government and villagers, into discussion arenas initiated through a participatory modelling process, called Companion Modelling (ComMod). In ComMod, participatory role-playing games (RPGs) associated with agent-based models (ABMs) are used within an iterative and evolving participatory process where stakeholders are involved in the co-construction of the common representation of the issue context and the co-design of the corresponding simulation tools. In the NT-NKD basin, the most pressing issue identified by stakeholders, and subsequently modelled, was river flood risk. The ComMod approach was implemented primarily through interactive field workshops. During these workshops, stakeholders were asked to co-design and use together a sub-basin model in the form of a RPG for land and water uses management, which includes upand downstream interests and needs, multiple uses/managements and scales. Based on the same model as the RPG, an ABM was also developed, which made it possible to simulate longer periods, while allowing participants to understand its structure and simulation outcomes. The model is multi-scale, so that each participant considered management not only for his or her local interests but also at the whole catchment level and could link his or her activities, roles and responsibilities with the catchment context, as well as with other stakeholders. By actively playing roles in the participatory workshops, stakeholders could identify knowledge gaps and knowledge needs from other management levels, such as the farmers’ level. This improved their understanding of flooding and enhanced their awareness of cross-scale interactions and of the need to collect multiple knowledge sources to approach such complex processes. Overall, the stakeholders had been receptive and were appreciative of ComMod and its modelling tools, because it afforded them the opportunity to engage in discussions of important issues regarding the catchment. This attitude contributes to a conducive environment for long term ComMod initiatives and other participatory processes. At the end of this first ComMod cycle, the stakeholders requested to further integrate knowledge from many groups of stakeholders to feed the flood risk model. Integrating knowledge from diverse stakeholders first requires understanding of their worldviews about the river basin. The next ComMod cycle will therefore aim at collecting and confronting scientists’, farmers’ and decision-makers’ views in order to highlight the diversity of perception levels and purposes assigned to the environment, allowing them to collectively analyse trade-offs between water and land uses, knowledge gaps, and potentially emerging collective purpose, and thus support discussion on river basin resilience and decision-making.