An Indigenous Knowledge System for Promoting Awareness of Water Resource Issues

Water resource issues such as water shortages exert stress on the socioeconomic growth and sustainability of developing countries worldwide. The sharing of complex data, knowledge, and information is crucial for the management of water. The lack of conveying water knowledge to end-users (citizens) in a meaningful manner has been identified as a contributing challenge towards water resource issues. With appropriate tools and technologies such as gamification and social technologies, this challenge can be addressed by developing engaging and motivating systems to promote awareness of water resource issues. This paper systematically reviews the literature to investigate the shortcomings of existing water systems in promoting awareness of water resource issues. Socio-technical systems theory was adopted for understanding and improving citizens’ activities related to the consumption of natural resources such as water, and general environmental sustainability. Knowledge of water resource issues should be relevant to the particular culture of the citizen and incorporate indigenous knowledge. The literature review, theory, and findings of this paper contributed to the design of an Indigenous Knowledge System (IKS) that can promote engagement and awareness of water resource issues.