Perspective on Risk Scenarios: Worldview, Perceptions, and Management of Water Resources in Mexico

This text is part of a multidisciplinary approach that integrates reflections from the fields of cognitive anthropology, climatic sciences, and ethnohistory. Initially, we will address how the Mesoamerican horizon has influenced the cosmovision, perceptions, and representations of water resources in present-day populations. We will discuss how this ontological framework and its transformations have influenced the management of water resources through processes of appropriation, negotiation, and conflict. This will exemplify diverse profiles of water management, taking an integrated approach to vulnerability and risk that is modulated by ethnic and regional aspects of history, landscape, and climate. Finally, we will discuss the challenges typically encountered by indigenous communities in situations involving environmental impact, as well as the issues of governmental institutional fragmentation that arise in the context of resource appropriation and management.