Decisions on coastal adaptation measures and other investments are taken over time, often in response to changing conditions and events. Decisions must be made early enough to prepare for the future, while simultaneously ensuring any investments made are future-proofed. Serious games are a useful tool to build stakeholder capacity in managing such challenging decision-making environments. They simulate real-world events and processes in an engaging and entertaining format, which facilitates improved comprehension and retention.

Deltares' Sustainable Delta game has been developed to facilitate stakeholder learning about the importance of adaptation planning and preparing for an uncertain future. It simulates interactions between water systems and society by augmenting scientific and technical information with climate change scenarios and decision-making processes. Board game materials and team-based negotiation complement a computer-based model that calculates and visualises impacts of the scenarios and implemented measures. Recent additions to the coastal version of the game incorporate important climate-related coastal challenges facing Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

Our presentation will outline core game features by focusing on the SIDS version. We will also describe experiences and lessons learned from playing the game with stakeholders in São Tomé and Principe. Participants gained improved understanding of the coastal system, the variety of coastal restoration and protection measures available to mitigate climate risks, and the need for making smarter investment decisions in light of future uncertainties. Next steps will be to use the game to verify the advantages of employing adaptive planning approaches like Dynamic Adaptation Policy Pathways (Haasnoot et al, 2013).