Catchment Detox

Take a minute from your Facebook farmville and try this similar game...

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What is Catchment Detox?

It’s an online game where the player manages a virtual river catchment. The game goes for 100 turns and you make as many changes to the landscape as you like (you can also do none!) before taking your next turn. The aim is to create an environmentally happy catchment with a sustainable and thriving economy.

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What are the values in the game? What does it teach?

The Catchment Ecosystem – What happens in one part of a catchment can affect the rest of the catchment. Taking water out of the river for irrigation means that downstream industry and environment is affected.

Water Planning - there is often low rainfall so it’s important to prepare for that by building weirs and dams to store water and/or by introducing water restrictions when needed.

A Healthy Environment - Looking after the environment (water quality, biodiversity and making sure there is enough water for the environment) is important. But not just for its own sake: it’s vital to ensure the future sustainability of our rivers and land so we can maintain viable agriculture, industrial and tourism sectors.

Producing Food - it’s important to produce food for the population, otherwise we need to import food which is both expensive and unsustainable.

Best Practice Agriculture – using ‘environmentally-friendly’ options for agriculture can markedly reduce the impacts of agriculture on the environment.

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Managing waterways is a huge challenge with climate change, increased demand for water and environmental problems putting our rivers under stress. Catchment Detox gives an idea of just how difficult it is to manage a river catchment.

Are you up for the challenge?

http://catchmentdetox.net.au/home/