Dwelling Near the Ditch: A Participatory Game on Urban Waste Management, Flooding, and Climate Change
Designed by Pablo Coll and Pablo Milrud for the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre, Dwelling Near the Ditch is a participatory learning game that supports dialogue about the opportunities and trade-offs facing communities that lack effective waste collection services, and the additional stress that climate change — in the form of more frequent and intense flooding — can pose for them. The game was developed with support from the American Red Cross and a research grant from the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN).
Players choose each round whether to dispose of their household waste in a nearby drainage canal at no cost, or to invest in responsible waste management services at a small upfront cost. As more waste accumulates in the canal, the risk and severity of flooding increases — with players who have not invested in waste management facing recovery costs when floods occur. From Round 4, players can also choose to collaborate on collective waste removal from the canal, introducing questions of collective action and free-riding. From Round 6, a climate change die is introduced, further increasing flood risk and intensifying the consequences of poor waste management decisions.
As the game is played, players experience the tensions and trade-offs that arise between individual and collective decision-making; short-term gain versus long-term protection; and decisions made under conditions of incomplete information. The game can be played with 5 to 100 or more participants organized into communities of five, and is freely available for non-profit use. A structured post-game debrief guides facilitators in connecting the game experience to real-life disaster risk reduction and waste management decisions.