The application of knowledge management in disaster management: past, present and future trends

Purpose The purpose of this study is to review the role of knowledge management (KM) in disaster management and crisis. Disaster causes many detrimental impacts on human lives through loss of life and damage to properties. KM has been shown to dampen the impact of the disaster on the utilization of knowledge among agencies involved and the local communities impacted by disasters. Design/methodology/approach Through a bibliometric methodology (co-citation, bibliographic coupling and co-word analysis), this study presents significant themes in the past, current and future predictions on the role of KM in disaster management. In this review paper, 437 publications were retrieved from the Web of Science and analyzed through VOSviewer software to visualize and explore the knowledge map on the subject domain. Findings Findings suggest that the significant themes derived are centralized to disaster preparedness during disaster and disaster postrecovery. This review presents a state-of-art bibliometric analysis of the crucial role of KM in building networks and interconnection among relevant players and stakeholders involved in disaster management. Research limitations/implications The main implication of this study is how the authorities, stakeholders and local community can integrate the KM system within the three stages of disasters and the crucial role of technologies and social media in facilitating disaster management. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to present a bibliometric analysis in mapping KM’s past, present and future trends in disaster management.