Water Regime Resilience and Community Rights to Resource Access in the Face of Climate Change

This paper begins by arguing that an analysis of social vulnerability seeking to enhance social resilience must take into account the social construction of vulnerability, namely, the economic, institutional and political factors which promote or constrain options for adaptation. Drawing on a case study of water security in the Lower Mekong Basin, this paper further argues that in the area of water governance, a critical hydropolitics approach would indicate that what some perceive as creativity and adaptation in the activities of the water regime may be argued to demonstrate constraints imposed by the dominance of law, engineering and economics. This informs a central concern of the paper, that of the relationship between the apparent resilience of institutions and the resilience of individuals and communities. In response to this concern, this paper explores people-centred approaches to resilience that focus on community rights and access to resources.