Breaking the Silo: an online serious game for multi-risk disaster risk reduction (DRR) management

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, requires 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. The development of the game and how it aims to support a shift from a single-risk to a multi-risk paradigm are discussed in detail. 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-risk (multi-hazard) 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 and 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 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. Feedback from the pre- and post-game surveys indicates that Breaking the Silos was found useful by the participants in increasing awareness of the complexities of risk.