5.3.1. The Problem—Environmental Flows in the Pangani Basin, Tanzania

The Pangani River Basin in East Africa has a population of 2.6 million people. The Pangani River begins as a series of small streams near Mount Kilimanjaro and passes through the arid Masai Steppe before reaching its estuary and the Indian Ocean. Along its 500 km course, the Pangani River is a lifeline for biodiversity, people, and industry, and is fundamental to the economic development of the region. The Basin is home to Kilimanjaro National Park, a listed World Heritage Site with extensive biodiversity values. The Pangani Basin experiences medium to high water stress with a high flood occurrence. The Basin contains several critically endangered terrestrial and aquatic species.

#### 5.3.2. Understanding the Problem

The Pangani Basin has widespread biodiversity values but is also used extensively for agriculture, industry and hydropower. Agreement on allocating water for the environment would have to include contrasting stakeholder groups with different perspectives and values. Consensus on how much, when and the variability of water provided to the environment would require a mechanism for negotiation using processes that enable the interests of traditionally more powerful water users and less powerful sectors to be reconciled [37,38]. Environmental flows must have clear objectives and scenarios built on multi-stakeholder consensus. Scientists can provide expert advice on how river basins change under various flow conditions, but it is the stakeholders who can say what the river is used for and how much water they need. The Basin Futures platform can be used to reconcile different stakeholder views and inputs to evaluate how ecology, economic costs and benefits across sectors and social equity respond to alternate river flow scenarios at multiple assessment levels (Table 3).


**Table 3.** Stakeholder model inputs, contributions and outputs at various assessment levels within the Pangani River Basin. Directions of arrows indicate increases (↑) and decreases (↓) of outputs.


**Table 3.** *Cont.*

#### **6. Assumptions and Disadvantages of Digital Platforms for Stakeholder Engagement**

There are clear benefits to utilising digital platforms in the stakeholder engagement process. However, there are user assumptions and drawbacks of using technological-based approaches that must be considered. An assumption and disadvantage of using digital tools are that users are expected to be computer literate and have a working internet connection and access to electronic devices. While the world is becoming increasingly technologically connected, the adoption of digital platforms could further the equality gap between traditionally more powerful water users and less powerful sectors such as local farmers. These local farmers could be left out or disadvantaged by the engagement process if digital tools were solely used. Furthermore, in-person contact and interactions between stakeholders during the participatory process can reveal conflicts or issues that are otherwise not visible to water managers and planners. Loss of personal connections could increase the likelihood of conflict and disagreement of water management and development plans. Therefore, digital platforms should not be used as a complete replacement of traditional stakeholder engagement strategies but rather as a tool to compliment them.

#### **7. Conclusions**

Well-informed water management decisions and policies require effective communication and a shared understanding of the issue at hand between stakeholders. Communication and understanding between stakeholders can be difficult to achieve, especially in transboundary or politically contentious basins. Digital tools that are objective, transparent and cater to a range of abilities can pave the way forward to understanding issues and effective communication between stakeholder groups. Despite the volume of information, data and models that can be provided to stakeholders in regards to water-related issues, supported decisions can be difficult to obtain. In this paper, we demonstrated how our platform can be used to reconcile and channel differing stakeholder views into the one modelling platform by exploring three broad yet common water resource planning issues. Each case study explored interactions approximately between 10 stakeholders with interests at micro/meso or macro scale in the basin. The flexibility in transcending the scales with relative ease while ensuring accuracy and transparency leads to an increase in the overall participation and knowledge. While Basin Futures can be used to engage and collaborate with a variety of stakeholders on water-related issues and projects, it is essential that the process is ground-truthed with local data. The platform can be used to gain creative insights and a better understanding of the issue at hand to build consensus and agreement between stakeholder groups.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualisation, J.O., C.P., A.P., A.S. and P.T.; methodology, J.O. and C.P.; software, P.T.; writing—original draft preparation, J.O.; writing—review and editing, J.O., C.P., A.P., A.S. and P.T. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This perspective piece contributes to the Basin Futures project, which is funded by CSIRO Land and Water.

**Acknowledgments:** We acknowledge the advisory board for Basin Futures. We thank three anonymous reviewers for improvements to the manuscript.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **References**


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