ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that vulnerability and its alter-ego, resilience, if suitably redefined and recentered between the three communities of practice—climate change policy, water resources and hazards management—can be useful concepts around which integrated pro-poor development, which reduces vulnerability and enhances resilience against climate change, can be conceived and practiced. The case studies draw their intellectual capital from the tradition of research in hazards, water and climate change within the discipline of human geography. Karez irrigation is an ancient system of underground water channels where water flows in by gravity from the “mother well” dug into the water table. Karez system has been the locus of social organization in the semi-arid environment of Balochistan. Very well-established rules of collective management, water distribution and conflict resolution have evolved around karez management. The Lai hazardscape is produced by the convergence of multiple material processes and ideologies governing official and public views of the hazardscape.
