The 2014 EU Directive on Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) lays down obligations for the EU Member States to establish a maritime planning process, resulting in a maritime spatial plan by 2020. Consultation should be carried out with local, national and transnational stakeholders. Stakeholder engagement in MSP is complex because of the great number and diversity of maritime stakeholders and the unfamiliarity of some of these stakeholders with MSP and its potential impact. To facilitate stakeholder engagement in MSP, the ‘MSP Challenge’ table top strategy game was designed and played as part of several stakeholder events in different European countries. The authors study the efficacy of the game for stakeholder engagement. Background and evaluation data of nineteen game sessions with a total of 310 stakeholders with different backgrounds were collected through post-game surveys. Furthermore, the efficacy of the game for stakeholder engagement processes, organised by competent MSP authorities in Scotland and Belgium, is studied in more detail. The results show that the board game, overall, has been a very efficient and effective way of familiarising a great diversity of stakeholders with MSP and to create meaningful interaction and learning among stakeholders in formal planning processes. However, the case studies also show that contextual factors—the level of familiarity with MSP and participants’ perception to sustainability—influences the efficacy of the game.

Steenbeek, J., G. Romagnoni, J. W. Bentley, J. J. Heymans, N. Serpetti, M. Gonçalves, C. Santos, H. Warmelink, I. Mayer, X. Keijser, R. Fairgrieve, and L. Abspoel. 2020. Combining ecosystem modeling with serious gaming in support of transboundary maritime spatial planning. Ecology and Society 25(2):21. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-11580-250221

The inherent complexity of planning at sea, called maritime spatial planning (MSP), requires a planning approach where science (data and evidence) and stakeholders (their engagement and involvement) are integrated throughout the planning process. An increasing number of innovative planning support systems (PSS) in terrestrial planning incorporate scientific models and data into multi-player digital game platforms with an element of role-play. However, maritime PSS are still early in their innovation curve, and the use and usefulness of existing tools still needs to be demonstrated. Therefore, the authors investigate the serious game, MSP Challenge 2050, for its potential use as an innovative maritime PSS and present the results of three case studies on participant learning in sessions of game events held in Newfoundland, Venice, and Copenhagen. This paper focusses on the added values of MSP Challenge 2050, specifically at the individual, group, and outcome levels, through the promotion of the knowledge co-creation cycle. During the three game events, data was collected through participant surveys. Additionally, participants of the Newfoundland event were audiovisually recorded to perform an interaction analysis. Results from survey answers and the interaction analysis provide evidence that MSP Challenge 2050 succeeds at the promotion of group and individual learning by translating complex information to players and creating a forum wherein participants can share their thoughts and perspectives all the while (co-) creating new types of knowledge. Overall, MSP Challenge and serious games in general represent promising tools that can be used to facilitate the MSP process.

The interaction of stakeholders is regarded key in modern environmental and spatial planning. Marine/maritime spatial planning (MSP) is an emerging marine policy domain, which is of great interest worldwide. MSP practices are characterized by diverse approaches and a lack of transnational cooperation. Actors with various backgrounds have to identify mismatches and synergies to jointly aim towards coherent and coordinated practices. The ‘Living Q’ is a communication method to make actors aware systematically about their viewpoints in an interactive, communicative and playful environment, while it draws on results of a proceeding ‘Q Methodology’ study. Results from ‘Living Q’ exercises with international expert’s groups from European Sea basins show that the method is capable to foster communication and interaction among actors participating in ‘Living Q’ exercises, while having the potential to generate added value to planning processes by actor interaction in a collaborative setting.

This paper presents the Dutch ‘Delta Plan for Agricultural Water Management’ (in Dutch: ‘Deltaplan Agrarisch Waterbeheer’; DAW). This is a voluntary, tailor-made initiative in which farmers, water authorities and their organisations work together to achieve environmental objectives, and to prevent damage caused by droughts and floods, while ensuring an economically strong and sustainable agricultural sector. Drawing on a decade of DAW experiences, this study highlights achievements, lessons learned, and future challenges. Results show that, even though DAW is under pressure due to a shortage of independent advisors, DAW facilitated information and knowledge exchange, and trust-building, which supports participating farmers to improve agricultural management practices. Furthermore, the voluntary nature of DAW, while a strength in that it enables farmers to adopt measures tailored to their specific circumstances, also results in a fragmented pattern of participation. This uneven uptake makes it difficult to assess the effectiveness of measures at the farm scale in relation to the realisation of contributing to EU objectives, such as the European Water Framework Directive (WFD).