Chapter 10
Serious Games in Sustainable Land
Management
Jacqueline Maaß
Abstract Over the last few decades, Germany has experienced a trend towards
increased suburbanisation and urban sprawl, accompanied by growing distances
between residential and commercial areas and growing numbers of the commuting
population. These phenomena were made possible in part by cheap energy prices for
fossil fuels and have accordingly determined our land use and settlement structures
to a major extent. As energy prices for fossil energy rise, we feel the effects in the
structures society has built, and these have an impact on land use and sustainable
land management.
Keywords eLAN serious game · Land use and transport (LuT) model · Energy
price · Land use · Political decision-makers
10.1 Introduction
The correlation between cheap fossil energy and land use has been the subject of
several studies worldwide focusing on different aspects and using different methods.
The eLAN—energy prices and land use project, funded by the German Sustainable
Land Management funding programme, analysed this correlation for the German
context. By simulating the complexity of sustainable land management as well as
incorporating learning aspects for decision-makers, the project combined a serious
game with a land use and transport (LuT) model, thus taking an integrated approach
to analysing the effects of high prices for fossil fuels on land use. The eLAN project
asked local and regional decision-makers to:
• Identify the effects of rising energy prices for their respective municipalities
• Generate possible responses about how to cope with rising energy prices, and
• Develop their own strategies to counter the negative effects of rising energy prices.
J. Maaß (B)
Institute for Transport Planning and Logistics, Technische Universität Hamburg (TUHH),
Hamburg, Germany
e-mail: jacqueline.maass@tuhh.de
© The Author(s) 2021
T. Weith et al. (eds.), Sustainable Land Management in a European Context,
Human-Environment Interactions 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50841-8_10
185
Serious Games in Sustainable Land
Management
Jacqueline Maaß
Abstract Over the last few decades, Germany has experienced a trend towards
increased suburbanisation and urban sprawl, accompanied by growing distances
between residential and commercial areas and growing numbers of the commuting
population. These phenomena were made possible in part by cheap energy prices for
fossil fuels and have accordingly determined our land use and settlement structures
to a major extent. As energy prices for fossil energy rise, we feel the effects in the
structures society has built, and these have an impact on land use and sustainable
land management.
Keywords eLAN serious game · Land use and transport (LuT) model · Energy
price · Land use · Political decision-makers
10.1 Introduction
The correlation between cheap fossil energy and land use has been the subject of
several studies worldwide focusing on different aspects and using different methods.
The eLAN—energy prices and land use project, funded by the German Sustainable
Land Management funding programme, analysed this correlation for the German
context. By simulating the complexity of sustainable land management as well as
incorporating learning aspects for decision-makers, the project combined a serious
game with a land use and transport (LuT) model, thus taking an integrated approach
to analysing the effects of high prices for fossil fuels on land use. The eLAN project
asked local and regional decision-makers to:
• Identify the effects of rising energy prices for their respective municipalities
• Generate possible responses about how to cope with rising energy prices, and
• Develop their own strategies to counter the negative effects of rising energy prices.
J. Maaß (B)
Institute for Transport Planning and Logistics, Technische Universität Hamburg (TUHH),
Hamburg, Germany
e-mail: jacqueline.maass@tuhh.de
© The Author(s) 2021
T. Weith et al. (eds.), Sustainable Land Management in a European Context,
Human-Environment Interactions 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50841-8_10
185