Rationale

Every year, floods affect a large part of the state. But whereas earlier, floods came and receded as natural phenomenon, today these are becoming more unpredictable and damaging. There is increasing loss of life and property as also an increasing extent of water logged and submergences areas. Dhemaji region is Agriculture predominant and livelihood of people is mainly dependent on land based agriculture and livestock for their survival. But due to onset of flood the livelihood of people become scattered. Because of flood Crops and houses get submerged, health problems become acute and water logging seriously delays and affects the next crop. Options and opportunities for works and labour decrease and the multi-pronged problems make the communities extremely vulnerable. The problem of Agriculture due to flood includes damage to crop, damage to soil, damage to irrigation channel, Damage to Live- Stock, cropping problem etc. In order to cope up with flood, Government and development organizations have tried to deal with the situation, but their initiatives have been more relief oriented and short period targeted. On the other hand, over centuries, local people have developed their own ways and means to deal with floods. These measures and techniques are local specific, require no external help or support and are inherently scientific.

In order for people to deal better with flood and their changing characters, one of the ways is to build peoples adaptive capabilities through raising their awareness, knowledge base and capacities to earn a living through a selection of appropriate crops and the techniques. This is essential, but as much a challenge.

 Today, the effects of increase frequency and ferocity of floods are being felt at some level or the other every month during the monsoon period (June-September). At such time, everyone from the Government to organizations and the public tries to help the affected people, and every other works comes to a virtual standstill.

 But with the receding of floods,  individuals and agencies that were hitherto working for the flood affected people soon return to their respective routine jobs, and the extensive destruction of the peoples basic resources and infrastructures in floods are left unattended or the intensity and pace pf attention gets slow. The people themselves too, bearing their losses, seek to return to their normal lives as soon as possible with whatever resources they are left with. Remarkably, there is no wide scale migration and people continue to inhibit these regions and learn to live with floods. 

 In order to understand why and how it is so, we sought to analyze the practices people have adopted, and found how these practices underline the peoples livelihood resilience in flood affected regions.