Linking Flood Risk Assessment, Adaptation Limits, and Loss and Damage: Evidence from a Risk-Based Framework in Assam, India

As climate change intensifies hydrological extremes, loss and damage (L&D) increasingly reflects not only the severity of hazards but also patterns of exposure, vulnerability, and the limits of adaptation. While recent research on hydrological extremes has advanced modelling of hazards and compound events, less attention has been paid to empirically linking risk profiles with observed loss and damage and lived adaptation responses. This study addresses this gap by applying a risk-based assessment framework to examine how flood risks translate into economic and non-economic loss and damage across districts in Assam, one of India’s most flood-prone states.

Building on the IPCC risk framework, flood risk is assessed as the interaction of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability using district-level indicators. Observed loss and damage is quantified using official disaster records from 2015–2023, disaggregated across housing, agriculture, livelihoods, infrastructure, and loss of life. The analysis empirically demonstrates that 24% of Assam’s districts fall within high flood-risk zones, experiencing substantial losses including infrastructure damage, loss of lives and livelihoods, and recurrent displacement. In these districts, repeated flooding forces households to abandon permanent homes and reside in temporary chang ghar (kutcha houses), often without secure livelihood options.

A further 61% of districts fall under moderate flood risk, where exposure and vulnerability - rather than hazard intensity - are the dominant drivers of loss and damage. These districts experience significant socio-economic impacts, including loss of life, livelihood disruption, and distress migration, with male household members frequently migrating to nearby districts or other regions as a coping response. The remaining 15% of districts are categorised as low flood risk, yet still experience livelihood-related loss and damage driven primarily by high vulnerability, indicating clear scope for targeted policy interventions to reduce residual risk.

To move beyond aggregated loss metrics, qualitative fieldwork in selected districts explores non-economic loss and damage, including health impacts, psychological distress, livelihood insecurity, cultural loss, and erosion of place attachment. The study further examines locally practised coping, incremental, and transformative adaptation strategies, revealing persistent mismatches between technocratic adaptation interventions and lived realities. Many losses persist despite adaptation efforts, underscoring adaptation limits and positioning loss and damage as a governance challenge rather than a purely technical one.

By empirically linking risk profiles, observed loss and damage, and adaptation practices, this study demonstrates how vulnerability-centred risk assessment can bridge adaptation planning and loss and damage policy, informing more equitable and context-sensitive climate responses in flood-prone regions.