Assam floodwaters recede, but losses to homes and livelihoods still endure

When Business Standard spoke to 66-year-old Ashok Agarwalla from Santak, he could barely talk; the trauma of a close escape from a disaster zone and concerns about losing the earnings of a lifetime were evident in his voice. “I was born in 1960 and have lived here ever since. I had a grocery shop and a house behind it. All of it has been washed away. We could not even save a single piece of cloth,” said Agarwalla.

This is not just the story of one Agarwalla, but of thousands of people in flood-hit Assam, where the death toll has already touched 101. More than 140,000 people have been displaced across seven districts, with over 450 villages inundated and 11,933.46 hectares of crop area damaged. It is an unprecedented crisis that even old-timers believe districts in upper Assam have never seen. “Not in my life of 84 years have I seen such floods in Sivasagar. Almost the entire town was under floodwaters,” said 85-year-old Devi Bagaria.

Sivasagar was among the worst-hit districts, with around 46 deaths, District Commissioner Mridul Yadav told Business Standard. Rescue and relief operations are almost over and the rehabilitation of affected families has begun, while an assessment of economic losses is under way.

But for residents, the crisis does not end when the water starts receding. Homes have to be cleaned of layers of mud, belongings have to be salvaged and families have to find somewhere to stay while waiting for rehabilitation. The flood also leaves behind less visible losses — damaged crops, disrupted livelihoods and, in some cases, land that may never return.

Yadav attributed the severity of the flooding partly to Sivasagar’s bowl-like terrain, which led to water accumulating from several directions. Floodwaters from Baitbari and runoff from heavy rainfall in Nagaland added to the accumulation, making drainage difficult.

The experience of Sivasagar also points to a larger problem: Assam’s floods are increasingly being shaped by multiple factors rather than a single spell of heavy rainfall.

Nearly 40 per cent of Assam’s land area is flood-prone, while the Brahmaputra continuously shifts its course, erodes riverbanks and alters floodplains.

A Climate Trends report describes the phenomenon as “compound flooding”, in which intense rainfall in Assam, heavy precipitation in upstream catchments across Arunachal Pradesh, Bhutan and Tibet, snow and glacier melt, swollen tributaries, erosion and landslides interact to produce larger and prolonged floods.

According to the report, the frequency of extreme floods is projected to increase sharply by 2080. A flood that currently occurs once in 10 years could recur every two years under high-emission scenarios.

For people living along the Brahmaputra and its tributaries, these overlapping processes can mean that water arrives from several directions and remains for longer. What begins as a flood can quickly become a livelihood crisis.

Kartiki Negi, climate impacts lead at Climate Trends and author of the report, said Assam was witnessing sharp intraseasonal variations in rainfall, with periods of intense rain interspersed with prolonged breaks.

“We have been witnessing sharp intraseasonal variations in the rainfall patterns; either the rainfall is very intense or break-monsoon periods are quite long, triggering extreme weather events. This is direct impact of global warming,” Negi said.

AVM GP Sharma, president of Meteorology & Climate Change at Skymet Weather, said the ongoing week would bring heavy to very heavy rain, particularly in the upper Assam region, which has already been ravaged by recent floods.

According to Sharma, the recent floods were not primarily due to excessive rainfall, but rather due to excess flows in the Brahmaputra and other tributaries in nearby regions.

“The floods over Assam is not due to prolonged rainfall this time, for a change it is the excess floe of water from the river bodies. Since the cause was different for this season, the results followed — areas which never saw floods and water logging suffered this season.”

For Assam’s residents, the changing pattern is not just a matter of numbers on a rainfall chart. It can determine how much time families have to move their belongings, whether crops survive and how long villages remain cut off.

Climate modelling cited in the report projects an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme flooding across the Brahmaputra basin, driven by more intense rainfall and changes in Himalayan and Tibetan hydrology.

A systematic review cited in the report points to a possible shift in peak rainfall from July to August, along with increased post-monsoon precipitation and declining pre-monsoon rainfall. This could produce higher flood peaks while reducing the time available for drainage.

Hydrological simulations suggest Brahmaputra streamflow could rise 13-15 per cent by the middle of the century. Under high-emission scenarios, a flood that currently occurs once in 10 years could occur every two years by 2080.

The Assam State Action Plan on Climate Change 2021-2030 projects a 5-38 per cent increase in extreme rainfall events and a rise of more than 25 per cent in flood events under future climate scenarios.

More than a rainfall problem

Climate change is only one part of Assam’s vulnerability. The Brahmaputra’s high sediment load, shifting channels and seasonal flooding also make the state particularly prone to erosion.

For those living along the river, erosion can be even more permanent than flooding. Water eventually recedes, but the land taken by the river does not return.

Since 1950, Assam has lost nearly 427,000 hectares to erosion — about 7.4 per cent of its geographical area, according to the report. The state government estimates that floods inundate an average of 931,000 hectares annually, causing average economic losses of around ₹200 crore.

The impact extends beyond homes and crops, disrupting agriculture, tea plantations, fisheries, transport and livelihoods, while erosion permanently removes productive land.

These losses rarely appear in a single number. They are spread across a shop that cannot reopen, a crop that cannot be harvested, a house that needs to be rebuilt and land that a family can no longer call its own.

For Agarwalla, the scale of that loss is already clear. His shop, his home and the belongings inside them are gone. For Bagaria, the flood has left behind a memory that she says is unlike anything she has seen in 84 years.

And for thousands of families across Assam, the immediate task is to rebuild after the water recedes. The longer-term challenge is harder: preparing for floods that are becoming more variable, interconnected and difficult to predict.