‘Living with Floods’: An Analysis of Floods Adaptation of Mising Community—A Case Study of Jiadhal River

The Mising people are known as ‘river loving’ people. After many years of settlement in the river bank of Brahmaputra and its tributaries, the community has webbed deep relations with river ecosystem. The increasing rate of floods and channel change over the years has taken a toll on the community living near to Jiadhal, a tributary of River Brahmaputra. The study reveals that in adaptation with floods, the community have developed adjustments mechanism to cope with flood. The house architecture, crops, land use, use of natural resource, etc. are all based on traditional ecological knowledge which support in mitigating the adverse effect of natural hazard like flood. But recent changes in the nature of floods and the local environment are making it difficult for the community to cope with floods. The traditional flood adaptation practices have become prone to failures due to large extent of sedimentation in the floodplains. Anthropogenic factors depleting the natural resource base have further reduced the resilience capacity of the community. Henceforth, the flood hazard of Jiadhal River has now become the cause for great sorrow for the Mising community.