URoL:ASC: What rules of life allow collectives to effectively manage risk? Understanding the rules underlying risk management across systems to increase societal resilience

Societies’ capacities to effectively manage risk, such as the threats arising from natural disasters, have not kept up with the world’s ecological changes. Previously very rare events, such as large floods or long-lasting droughts, are becoming more frequent, and the rapid dissemination of information on the internet is contributing to the spread of misinformation about hazards, risks, and how to manage them.

To better deal with these risks, this project builds new risk management strategies that are based on biological Rules of Life. These rules are used by living systems to preserve and protect the life in those systems, including those based on altruism, community growth, communication, and enforcement of community rules. Biological systems that exploit these rules include bacterial colonies, hives of social insects, schools of fish, and herding animals.

This project combines gamification of the Rules of Life with narrative storytelling to develop new strategies for collectively managing risk of natural disasters, infrastructure challenges, pandemics, and other shocks. The researchers use a practice-based co-design process that conducts science with involvement of individuals in at-risk communities.

Story- and play-based activities that require solving cooperation and coordination dilemmas create a variety of experiences and products that uncover new solutions to societal challenges, encourage cooperation and collective risk management, determine new ways to encourage people to engage collective risk management strategies, and develop new outreach activities, such as museum exhibits and workshops. The project will benefit vulnerable low-income communities struggling to deal with disasters and water managers in the desert southwest trying to increase the resilience of the water supply.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.