Breaking the Silos: an online serious game for multi-risk DRRmanagement

Abstract. The increased complexity of disaster risk due to climate change, expected population growth and the increasing interconnectedness of disaster impacts across communities and economic sectors, require Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) measures that are better able to address these growing complexities. Especially Disaster Risk Management (DRM) practitioners need to be able to oversee these complexities. Nonetheless, in the traditional risk paradigm, there is a strong focus on single hazards and the risk faced by individual communities and economic sectors. Breaking the Silos is a serious game designed to support various stakeholders (including policy makers, risk managers, researchers) in understanding and managing the complexities of DRR measures in a multi-(hazard) risk setting, thereby moving away from hazard-silo thinking. What sets Breaking the Silos apart from other disaster risk games, is its explicit focus on multi-risk challenges. The game includes different hazard types, intensities, and their interactions, different impact indicators, and (a)synergies between DRR measures. Moreover, the spread of expert knowledge between different participants and the high levels of freedom and randomness in the game design contribute to a realistic game. The game was successfully launched during the World Bank GFDRR’s Understanding Risk 2020 Forum and later played again with the same settings with researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. Before and after playing the games, participants were asked to complete surveys asking them about their perception of the challenges of DRM and whether the game raised their awareness of these challenges. The preliminary findings indicate that Breaking the Silos was found useful by the participants in increasing awareness of the complexities of risk.