Amphibious attachment systems for existing stilt houses to counteract flash floods along the Brahmaputra river plains in Assam, India
Context
The river Brahmaputra, with one of the largest tributary systems in the world, divides the state of Assam into almost two halves. This means that a large geographical area in Assam is prone to floods and the people living along the banks of the river face the wrath of the floods in severe proportions. Most people who live here are of low-economy backgrounds and the tribals; These areas don’t receive flood warnings nor any effective flood evacuation strategies; Lives of repetitive struggle and displacement.
Who is affected the most?
One of the marginalized indigenous communities of India; Only community in North East India that still live along the banks of the Brahmaputra and Subansiri rivers; Sometimes, floods force them to shift their villages; Agriculture and Fishing are the principal means of livelihood of the Misings but it is still at the subsistence level.
What happens during the flash floods?
During the predictable cyclic monsoon floods, there is uniform silt deposition across the fields which enhance the agricultural development and gains. But when flash floods occur, which are more unpredictable and non-cyclic, the silt deposition is too high and only causes more damage to the crops and infrastructure in general.
The evacuation process during the flash floods goes like this: Residents are forced to go into relief camps as their homes are not stable enough to withstand the floods. After going through long periods of psychological stress of staying away from home and in unsanitary conditions, the residents return to partially or completely destroyed homes. The process of rebuilding their new home is a long one, mostly devoid of resources or money to build it. After the strenuous process of creating the new home, they only prepare it to be destroyed all over again during the next flood!
Problems with the relief camps:
The number of relief camps to the number of flood based victims have a great margin. Due to the shortage of space, there is overcrowding creating chaos.
Inadequate facilities as the government can’t afford it.
Lack of medical infrastructure to care for the people affected
Lack of sanitation within the camps; specially the toilets
Due to most of the above reasons, the camps become a bed for the spreading of contagious diseases
Flood inundation: VISUAL UNDERSTANDING
The following maps are based on satellite image analysis of an area in the district of North Lakhimpur in Assam on the 29th of August, 2023.
Existing infrastructure of the Mising community
What works and does not with the chang ghors?
What are the gaps?
One the one hand, as mentioned before, the Mising residents go through a vicious cycle of building and re-building, and due to the unavailability of regular income, the process takes many months. By the time the house is completely ready, they face the floods again!
On the other hand, the government uses most of their funds on repairing infrastructural damages and establishing flood relief camps. As explained previously, the relief camps are not able to keep up with the growing crowd in need for them. And at the moment, the government is still investing more in the same direction. It seems that there is not enough spent on providing compensation for the Mising residents to help set up their lives post the flood damages.
In lieu of this, it seems like there is an urgent need for a low-cost and durable solution that can strengthen the stilt housing infrastructure so they may be able to endure the wrath of the flash floods.
What if?
Why would this be relevant and promising?
State of the Art
Design concept and parameters
How can we use the indigenous knowledge of the locals and combine it with manufacturing resources in Assam to design a low-cost system that can help increase the endurance of the stilt house infrastructure against flash floods in Assam?
The proposal
The idea is to have an additional adjoining space next to the weak houses as the first step to the larger level proposal. This is because the weak houses are the most prone to getting destroyed by the floods. This module will be the bunker for safety during the floods, and then when the weaker house gets destroyed, the other spaces can be built around this one with the same system, so as to gradually transform the infrastructure of the housing.
The spatial function
The performance
The components
The assembly
Component details
A. The foundation
B. The floater framework
The fabrication
A corner prototype of the barrel framework to show how the cage would move up and down with the flood, while encasing the vertical guide rails
Render visualization to show system scalability on a community level
