Indigenous Strategies to Cope with Rod Kohi: A Case Study of Rural Dera Ghazi Khan
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61503/cissmp.v4I1.313Keywords:
Disasters, Flood Coping Mechanism, Rod Kohi, DG Khan, Sanghar, NotakAbstract
Climatic change in recent decades has significantly increased the frequency and intensity of water-related disasters in Pakistan. Erratic monsoon rains, once relatively predictable, have become highly uncertain, often triggering devastating flash floods in Southern Punjab. The rural flood plains of District Dera Ghazi Khan are particularly vulnerable. Communities living in these areas, whose livelihoods are predominantly agrarian, have developed indigenous strategies to minimize losses and sustain agricultural subsistence. This study explores the precautionary measures and coping mechanisms employed by local agrarian communities, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted for PhD research in Anthropology. Data collection included participant observation and 20 in-depth interviews with flood-affected farmers across villages in Dera Ghazi Khan. The findings reveal a range of indigenous preventive measures such as altered cropping patterns, construction of private dykes (Awami bands), elevated housing structures (Thalla), and collective labor systems (Wingar). Coping strategies include reliance on Baradari networks, inter-caste marital alliances, temporary migration, food and fodder storage, and the construction of Charhawa or Machan to safeguard valuables. The research concludes that these locally developed systems not only mitigate flood impacts but also strengthen social cohesion, demonstrating how indigenous knowledge continues to play a critical role in climate resilience.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Abdul Samad Akbar, Anwaar Mohyuddin , Rashida Aziz

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Contemporary Issues in Social Sciences and Management Practices (CISSMP) licenses published works under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.