The central objective of the research project ‘Documenting and Assessing Adaptation Strategies to Too Much, Too Little Water’ is to document adaptation strategies at local or community level to constraints and hazards related to water and induced by climate change in the Himalayan region, including how people are affected by water stress and hazards, their local short and long-term responses, and the extent to which these strategies reduce vulnerability to water stress
and hazards.

Five case studies were carried out in four countries. The results of each have been summarised in separate documents on a CD-ROM to accompany a single synthesis document.
The Assam case study presented here documents and assesses the local and /or traditional practices of communities which have evolved from their culture, customs, beliefs, indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) and skills that have enabled them to survive water stresses and cope with hazards and disasters over the long term in the fl ood plains of the Brahmaputra basin
of eastern Assam, India.

The research was carried out at two sites: viz, the areas of Majgaon (one village: Majgaon) and Matmora (four villages: Tinigharia, Khamon Birina, Opar Khamon, Bahpora No.1) through participatory action research (PRA) complemented by secondary data in some cases. The fi ve villages are in the Dhemaji and Lakhimpur districts of Assam, respectively. The study sites were selected on the basis of their long history of water-induced stresses and the vulnerability and adaptability of the communities to water-induced hazards such as floods, flash floods, river bank erosion, and land degradation caused by sand deposition.