A long-term negative effect of monetary incentives on the participatory surveillance of animal disease: a pilot study in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

BACKGROUND: In general, animal diseases have a significant impact on public health; accordingly, an effective animal disease surveillance system is an important control system that requires efficient and engaging participants in the long run. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of monetary and social motivation on animal disease surveillance. We hypothesized that there are two sorts of motivation based on Fiske's relational theory (1992): monetary incentives (monetary markets) and nonmonetary incentives (social markets). METHODS: In Chiang Mai Province, Northern Thailand, we analyzed data from a pilot project that began in 2014 and used a mobile application to report on signs that identify animal health problems. A total of 67 participants from 17 different areas in the central part of the province participated in this study. Participants in this study were divided into two groups: those who received monetary incentives and those who received social incentives. RESULTS: According to the findings, the monetary market group's effort was significantly higher than that of the social market group during the time when the volunteers in the monetary market group were paid. However, in the long run, the monetary market group reported significantly less than the social market group. Social incentive, on the other hand, was more efficient once the payment period ended. CONCLUSIONS: Social incentive outperformed monetary motivation in terms of efficiency and sustainability in the long run. Not only did the volunteers who were offered monetary incentive put in less effort than those who were offered the social incentive, but they were also not remotivated by the social incentive after the payment period had ended.

Survey data of a traditional communal water irrigation system in Northern Thailand.

This data article contains a description of a dataset collected by a survey on a traditional communal water irrigation system. This is the Muang fai, a 700-years old communal irrigation system in Northern Thailand. The Muang fai is managed through a series of regulations that are close to Ostrom's principles of effective common property resources (Ostrom, 1990). The survival of this long-standing practice, including its knowledge of the water-flow characteristics of the watershed, is under threat as new technologies, such as groundwater pumping, become increasingly accessible. The target population of the survey was the group of Longan farmers who are located within the 12 villages that are engaged in Muang fai Sop Rong in Chiang Mai Province, Northern Thailand. Information was specifically collected about irrigation practices, farmland characteristics and socio-economic variables from 570 longan (their main crop) farmer households. Roughly half of these sampled farmers practise Muang fai, the other half practise underground pumping irrigation. The irrigation information collected includes type of irrigation (surface or underground), the quantity of water used, pumping methods (if pumps are used). Farming characteristics collected include volume and value of the harvests, land size, and distance to irrigation canal. Socioeconomic characteristics included among others: farmers' income, expenditure, education, off-farm employment and Muang-fai membership. This dataset can be a source of baseline information for future research as well as help preserve the knowledge of this tradition.