Serious gaming in flood risk management

Abstract

Serious gaming is increasingly used to explore important real-world problems and a growing number of serious games are addressing flood-related issues. However, there has been limited synthesis of these attempts and their contributions to the ongoing shift toward a more holistic and governance-based flood resilience perspective in flood risk management (FRM). This international review collates and analyses these attempts in order to develop a knowledge base of serious gaming in the field of FRM. It contains 37 games that were developed with different rationales that include engaging players in the topic of FRM, supporting practice by exploring future options through collaboration, improving communication of FRM, as educational tools, and to collect research data. The gameplay countries and player characteristics, game characteristics, relevance to FRM, game rationales, and collection of data are explored in this paper. Identified serious games provided an unconventional and entertaining approach to engage stakeholders on flood-related issues. The review analyzed the serious games in light of the shift toward flood resilience and identified limitations in the documentation of serious games and their potential in understanding the longer-term impacts of gameplay on players.Furthermore, the vast majority of reviewed games were played in a single country and missed out on understanding the cultural production and perspectives of FRM that could support cross-cultural learning and inspiration for future FRM strategies. Overall, the review identified an important role for serious games in the shift toward governance and the adoption of more holistic flood resilience perspectives.

Science for social licence to arrest an ecosystem-transforming invasion

“…A potentially fruitful avenue for future research may be in assessing the effectiveness of integrating forecasting model development and communication with stakeholder engagement processes such as structured decision making (Estévez et al 2015 ) or serious gaming (e.g. Forrest et al 2022 ) in building social licence. There is also an apparent lack of research considering how scientific information might best be used to capitalise on potential opportunities to enhance social licence or manage sources of social resistance revealed by qualitative social research methods (e.g.…”

Earth Observation to Address Inequities in Post‐Flood Recovery

“…Non‐EO data could include, for example, data from in‐drain sensors (Gold et al., 2023), high water marks, photos from social media (Hultquist & Cervone, 2020), residents' experience or memory of inundated events (Tellman et al., 2015), census‐based population and demographic data, health records data to track hazard‐related mortalities (Parks et al., 2021; Rerolle et al., 2023), policy variables and responses, and information on the economic impacts of floods (Wen et al., 2022). To understand local social processes that contextualize recovery progress, non‐EO data could also be collected through semi‐structured interviews, surveys, participatory mapping approaches, and serious games (e.g., Forrest et al., 2022).…”

Gamification and Serious Games for Cybersecurity Awareness and First Responders Training: An overview

“…Serious games are increasingly utilized to study real-world situations, including floods. There has been limited synthesis of these approaches and their contributions to a more holistic and governance-based flood resilience viewpoint in flood risk management (FRM) [47]. Serious games offered an interactive and engaging method for addressing flood-related concerns.…”

“…People have invented a number of ways to train disaster relief participants. Traditional training Flood awareness A serious game to increase awareness on flood training preparation [28] Police training TRILLION serious games are used to train and educate the community, stimulate discussion and create awareness [40] Disaster preventions A serious game-based learning package for disaster prevention education [41] Fire Evacuation drills A web-based serious game for virtual fire evacuation drills [42] Disaster relief A location-based AR game on urban disaster management [43] Disaster relief A serious game to get a better understanding of disaster management techniques [44] Cyber security survey 181 games related to cybersecurity [45] Police training Game Jam will transform the delivery of first responder training in tackling cyber-crime [46] Fire Safety An immersive and realistic VR game, suitable for interactive fire safety learning and communication [47] Flood risk management A serious game to provide rationales such as learning, reflection, civic engagement, promoting behavior change as well as preparing players for future roles [49] Disaster risk management A serious game for disaster awareness, portraying hazards and vulnerabilities, and modelling useful skills across all stages of DRM cycle [50] Disaster relief To train participants in disaster relief and a large number of Serious Games for Disaster Relief (SGDRs) [51] Cyber security survey A survey of 20 serious games for teaching cyber security at different levels approaches, including disaster drills, may not fulfill today's needs. Many Serious Games for Catastrophe Relief (SGDRs) have been developed to train disaster planning and rescue [50].…”