Approaches to understanding drought and flood risks often overlook how
situatedness and social structures shape communities’ knowledge-making and
meaning-making processes. This can result in homogenous and detached
knowledge systems and governance set-ups that simplify complex contexts, and
entangled human-environment relationships. In this study, we take the case of two
riverine communities in the Peruvian Amazon – Bajo Belén (lower Belen) and
Tamshiyacu – to explore how these communities learn with the river how this
knowledge informs their livelihood decisions, and how their differing relationships
with the river influence the impacts of droughts and floods on their ways of life.
From 2022 to 2024, we conducted storytelling sessions with 35 community
members to understand their daily and seasonal activities, which are deeply tied to
river levels. By employing reflexive qualitative analysis of these narratives
alongside time-series data on river levels and precipitation, we developed
community-specific calendars that identify “risk windows”—periods during which
specific activities are most vulnerable to changes in river levels. Our findings
underscore the importance of engaging in situated approaches to understanding
and responding to risk. At a local engagement level, the remainder of our work in
2025 is targeted at working with local organizations to inspire insights on how
such approaches can inform the design of community-specific projects and
policies.
