Extracting local disaster knowledge through gamification in a flood management model community in Thailand

As risks and effects of climate hazards increase, disaster-prone communities need to gather and systematize Local Disaster Knowledge (LDK) and link it with scientific knowledge for effective disaster risk management. Methods for extracting and synthesizing local knowledge have been developed, though duplicating the methods in any other areas remains a challenge. This study utilizes the concept of gamification for knowledge extraction, and develops a game called “Local Disaster Knowledge Extracting Game: Flood management in Thailand” and designs a focus group discussion which enables easy comparison with the game. The study sets its indicators to evaluate the effectiveness of LDK extraction, and through a social experiment in a model community for community-based flood management in North Thailand, it reveals the superior benefits of the gamification in comparison to focus group discussion in extracting more knowledge related to local contexts and more locally specific knowledge and promoting the social learning enabler.