1 Indigenous Knowledge, Early Warning System and Disaster Management: A Case Study of Khetran Community in Balochistan, Pakistan 1 Rahim Bakhsh Khetran, 2 Sarfraz Khan, and 3 Waheed Chaudhry Abstract Present study was conducted in a small community Nahar Kot, District Barkhan, Balochistan (Pakistan). The study aims at understanding the role of the early warning system in the disaster management at community level. Indigenous knowledge has a pivotal role in managing the disasters in the absence of the scientific knowledge and vice-versa. This study sheds light on the role of early warning systems i.e. weather predictions based on the typology of the winds and predictions based on the behavior of the animals. The analysis shows that these masses of the tribal community of the Barkhan have an enriched indigenous knowledge purely based on their experiences. They also believe in the elders because of the vast experiences regarding local environment and they also timely get help from their elders to predict weather and mitigate with it. Keywords: Indigenous Knowledge, Early Warning System, Disaster Management, Rural Balochistan, Khetran Tribe, Blaoch, Barkhan, Balochistan, Pakistan. INTRODUCTION In the rural community throughout the Balochistan, people rely on the different types of predictors of the future disasters. These modes of early warning help them to reduce the affect of the expected disaster(s). People have experience of generations to predict the droughts on the basis of the changes in the behaviors of the animals. They also understand the types of wind and make certain arrangements to mitigate with the severity of the environment in advance. One can easily find such predictive activities in the different rural communities across Kenya and other African States. Indigenous knowledge is not only prevalent in the case of Balochistan but it has been a major source of the prediction of the environment in different parts of the world too. Before discussing the role of indigenous knowledge in the disaster management one must look into the conceptual frameworks of the above mentioned three terms i.e. indigenous knowledge, early warning system, and disaster management. 1 PhD Scholar, Department of Anthropology, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. 2 Lecturer, Department of Sociology, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. 3 Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.