One of the biggest challenges for scientists working in natural hazard prevention and management is to communicate the right knowledge and the related uncertainty to stakeholders and population at risk.

It is often emphasized that scientists should learn and use a more popular language to disseminate their knowledge and their messages, and many efforts have been recently done for this purpose. However, all components of the society - not just scientists - have to play a role and have a responsibility in natural hazards prevention. Several communities are not aware that they are living in high-risk areas and they do not know how to deal with potential hazards. Only some countries have already adopted disaster laws or codes that define the role of each component of the society. Nevertheless, also among the most developed countries, it is common to see that people do not know what they should do or who to contact before, during or after a disaster: they often lack information, and when they receive it, it is in many cases too late. Ideally, each component can help and must understand that everyone is part of the prevention cycle, where the failure of a single part can generate or contribute to the failure of the whole system.

In this short course, we will use a serious game useful for multi-hazards and disaster risk management. Using a real case study, participants will understand the role and the responsibility of each component (national and local authorities, scientists, media and population) in a scenario potentially prone to natural hazards. Further, it will be possible to learn to identify the needs, how to contribute in the disaster cycle, how to collaborate with others to obtain information or how and which information you can provide to other components.

The short course will be a combination of individual and group work and the goal is to come with a definition of the different roles and a list of actions for each component of the society. The output of the exercise will help to reveal, thus enable participants to learn, how the communication should be among society components as well as how the different players can address barriers and bridges.
In this sense, this exercise will help to promote the understanding of different roles and responsibilities in disaster risk prevention and people attending the course can replicate the exercise for other real cases or while teaching at their own institutions.

We especially encourage, but not limit, the participation of Early Career Scientists interested in the field of Natural Hazards.

In order to better organize the short course, we ask interested people to fill-in the registration form available at the following link: https://goo.gl/forms/NAeeUarf0gTlRRGA2. Be reminded that the short course is open to everyone, even not registered people, and the form does not supersede the general registration for the General Assembly.

The short course is organized in cooperation with NhET (Natural hazard Early career scientists Team).