Structural Causes of Vulnerability to Flood Hazard in Pakistan*

This paper uses recent theoretical advances in the field of hazards research to inform the analysis of an empirical study on flood hazard conducted in central Pakistan. The investigation seeks to understand the causes of vulnerability and their development that culminates in disaster, with the basic presumption that empirical events have causal links going back to societal structures which are not measurable but contain the mechanisms that lead to the events and their perceptions. A case study in five villages of central Pakistan was conducted to understand the elements of communities' and social groups' differential vulnerability to flood hazard. The elements of vulnerability are situated within a tripartite conceptual space of vulnerability, composed of entitlement relations, empowerment relations, and political economy. A modified “pressure and release” model was applied to the field survey results to understand the progression of vulnerability from the structural abstract level to the concrete level of physical disasters. I concluded that the study communities' vulnerability was largely a function of their disempowerment. vulnerability,