Contested issues game structuring approach - CIGAS workshop Houston report, results and reflection

Abstract

CIGAS stands for Contested Issues Game Structuring Approach. CIGAS is a practice developed specifically for contested environments, which strives to enhance participant’s insight by means of game structuring and system modeling techniques. Within this practice participants are understood to have different interests and values. The purpose is thus not to reach consensus nor to solve conflicts, but rather to explore the existing different interests, values, preferred futures, as well as the potential clusters of actions belonging to these futures and the associated restrictions, objections and hurdles. Ideally, knowledge of the biophysical and social systems and the effects of infrastructural measures serve as substantive inputs to the process. This knowledge yields the 'bandwidths' within which system responses can occur. So, if there is disagreement about whether a particular intervention will lead to one situation or another, the focus lies on determining a bandwidth, or different bandwidths, and the order of magnitude within which effects could occur, based on systems understanding and models. The method focusses on determining which bandwidths are associated with which outcomes or futures and how different stakeholders view and value these outcomes/futures. This document is a reflection of the CIGAS workshop conducted in Houston of 16 and 17 October 2014. It explains the steps of the method and represents the knowledge sharing and discussions of the workshop participants. The document is not intended as a full academic reflection on the CIGAS method. Instead it serves primarily as documentation of the event and feedback to participants and hosts, and may be used in the furtherance of decision-making regarding flood risk in the Houston Galveston Bay Area.