We had a plenary session in the morning. Martin pointed out that it will become increasingly difficult to find suitable extraction locations due to other uses. Maria explained that multiple stakeholders need to be involved intensively such as ministries, Rijkswaterstaat, dredging sector, fisheries, nature organisations and coastal communities, which are, not incidentally, involved in OR ELSE.
Next,representatives of Fisheries, dreging companies, nature and government were given the floor to give a position statement on what they think of sand extraction, how it affects them and how sand extraction could be improved to serve their interests. The statements were each followed by questions from the audience and resulted in a lively and informative exchange of ideas and viewpoints.
All PhD students and postdocs have been assigned and the project is in full swing with literature reviews, experiments, field measurements and modelling activities being carried out. Lively discussions took place.
The team was impressed by how fully participants engaged with the serious game while relating it to real-life challenges. No one took a break to stand up in these two hours that the session lasted. They did not even complain about being kept indoors on such a beautiful sunny afternoon at the end of October in the Netherlands!
the really constructive part was the open dialogue that followed the game. In the coming weeks, BUAS will be analyzing the feedback carefully in order to discuss next steps and plan for more testing and co-designing sessions over the coming months.
This was the reason for not having a proper wrap up!