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Drought is a recurrent hazard around Lake Naivasha, Kenya, an area known as a centre for commercial irrigated agriculture and horticulture. Drought affects smallholder farmers, pastoralists and larger scale agricultural enterprises differentially. We gathered qualitative data through semi-structured individual and group interviews with representatives of all Water Resource User Associations (WRUAs) in the area, focusing on the impacts of drought on various actors, and the strategies they undertook to alleviate the effects of drought. We used an original framework combining insights from equitable resilience and environmental justice literatures, to understand how absorptive, adaptive and transformative resilience capabilities are distributed among different groups within the catchment. Historical processes of land alienation and promotion of commercial farming have reduced pastoralists’ and smallholders’ access to land and financial social and political capital, and their involvement in water governance processes, which are dominated by large scale commercial flower farms. Thus, smallholders, pastoralists, and downstream water users are more vulnerable to drought and less able to enact strategies that enhance their drought resilience, such as establishing water storage infrastructure and fencing off water access points. The study confirms the importance of analysing how historical processes influence contemporary drought resilience capacities. This method will enhance analyses of resilience to climate-related hazards, which are becoming more prevalent in an era of climate change, with widespread implications for livelihoods and business.