Understanding and managing the interlinkages of disaster risk reduction measures in a multi-risk environment is an urgent challenge. Especially when tradeoffs and synergies can lead to the unfortunate realization that decreasing the risk of one hazard can increase the risk of another. To better understand the interplay between risk measures aimed at single hazards in a multi-risk setting, the serious game, “Breaking the Silos”, was developed and first launched during UR2020. Now, for UR2022, an interactive lab session will be presented to inspire participants to bridge science and practice in a multi-hazard world. This session will focus on forward-looking approaches to managing multi-risks and is designed to support various stakeholders (including policy makers, risk managers, and researchers) in understanding and managing the complexities of multi-risk management, but also to better prepare for future climate scenarios accounting for different contexts. To apply theory in practice, this session will be in the format of an interactive lab. This interactive lab will prompt participants to consider: 1) elements of dynamic adaptive pathway thinking to match the complexities of decision-making in reality; 2) long-term uncertainties and system dynamics; 3) tradeoffs and synergies across sectors, stakeholders, space and time; 4) the importance of accounting for different contexts and how this can affect replicability and scalability. This chosen format is also highly relevant to the spread of expert knowledge between different participants, and the randomness in the game elements will contribute to a highly realistic narrative of decision-making processes. To set the scene, speakers will highlight key challenges in decision-making processes for a complex disaster risk narrative. The session will conclude with a call for a unified framework for managing multi-risks and along the way inspire stakeholders to move away from hazard-silo thinking, which enables us to be better prepared for the challenges of a future world.
