Local responses to too much and too little water in the greater Himalayan region
Adjusting to Floods on the Brahmaputra
Plains, Assam, India
*
Aaranyak, Guwahati, Assam
Key messages
• Indigenous communities living in flood-prone areas in eastern Assam have been responding to floods and other
water-related stresses in unique ways, based on their traditional knowledge systems.
• With the intensity and frequency of the hazards increasing in recent times, their ways of coping and adapting have
also changed and have sometimes become less effective.
• Cultural norms play a significant role in determining how these communities cope and adapt.
• In recent years, prolonged and extreme floods, intensified riverbank erosion, and siltation have severely challenged
the capacity to respond and rendered agriculture (the prime source of livelihood) no longer viable in Matmora, and
less productive in Majgaon.
• The communities need help to strengthen their adaptation capacities through intervention programmes aided by
good governance.
Introduction
The Brahmaputra river and its tributaries drain the state
of Assam in northeast India (population 26 million).
This study in the Brahmaputra Valley of Assam examines
The river originates from glaciers in southern Tibet
one of the most flood-prone valleys in India. Every
(elevation 5,300 masl) and enters the Bay of Bengal
year, floods, flash floods, riverbank erosion, and
after traversing 2,880 km through China, India, and
sand deposition on fields overwhelm the landscape.
Bangladesh. About one-third of the Indian part of the
However, flash floods have become more devastating
Brahmaputra Basin is in Assam. The Brahmaputra Valley
since the mid 1990s, especially on the northern bank of
within Assam consists mainly of vast alluvial floodplains
the Brahmaputra Valley.
covering an area of about 56,480 sq.km (altitude 34-
130 masl).
Indigenous communities living on the riverbanks have
developed traditional livelihood mechanisms seen in
their dwellings, agriculture, livestock-rearing practices,
Study sites
and food storage. They have ways of foretelling floods
The team looked at two villages, Majgaon and
and the weather, which have enabled them to cope and
Matmora, located in Dhemaji and Lakhimpur districts in
adapt.
the eastern part of Assam on the northern bank of the
Brahmaputra River bordering Arunachal Pradesh (see
Until two decades ago, farmers perceived short-duration
Table 3). The five villages at these sites are home to
floods as beneficial because the flood waters brought
three important indigenous communities: the Mishings
nutrient-bearing silt that helped enhance soil fertility
in Matmora village and the Ahoms and Chutiyas in
along the riverbanks. Since then, the floods have
Majgaon. In Matmora, there are also several Assamese
become more intense and frequent. They submerge more
caste groups, including Brahmins and Koibarttas and a
areas for longer periods, causing damage to crops, and
small population of Bihari people, who came to Assam
eventually rendering the soil unsuitable for any form of
from Uttar Pradesh 30 years ago.
cultivation (Goswami and Das 2003). The communities
are having to cope and adapt in new ways.
* A documentary film ‘Living with Floods’ on this case study is available on a separate DVD from ICIMOD.
43