Interactive learning scenarios for local land development officials in partnership with ASFPM

The Association of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM) is a national organization of floodplain management professionals.  ASFPM’s mission is to promote education, policies and activities that mitigate current and future losses, costs and human suffering caused by flooding, and to protect the natural and beneficial functions of floodplains – all without causing adverse impacts.

The land development decisions in each community across the United States are made on a case by case basis by local officials, and a community’s exposure to flood risk arises out of the cumulative total of these decisions.  The ASFPM Foundation therefore needed to teach and reinforce fundamental floodplain management principles to groups of local land development decision makers.

What we did:

Working in partnership, ASFPM and PlayGen have conceived FloodManager, a simulation game for teaching and reinforcing basic floodplain management principles to groups of local land development decision makers.

Starting with a brief history of a fictional town, FloodManager progresses to present day climate and mimics the situation most community leaders find themselves in – dealing with past development decisions that were made before they got on the scene, often before any floodplain regulations existed.

FloodManager consists of a series of annual decisions a group of players make on how to spend their investment revenue in known floodplains. In addition to residences, players are encouraged to invest in commercial buildings to further increase their profits.

Benefits:

• FloodManager teaches and reinforces fundamental floodplain management principles to groups of local land development decision makers.
• Players develop a deeper understanding of the consequences of their actions, gaining knowledge on how they will affect the economic vitality of their community.

Play FloodManager now! Get on to floodmanager.org