




































 

Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal 3 (2): 83–104, July 2020 

 
RESEARCH PAPER 
 

Flood Mitigation, Climate Change Adaptation, and 
Technological Lock-in in Assam 
 

Robert Wasson,  Arupjyoti Saikia,  Priya Bansal,  and Chong Joon 

Chuah   
 
Abstract: Climate change adaptation requires communities and policymakers to be 
flexible in order to cope with high levels of uncertainty in climate projections, 
particularly of precipitation, flood magnitude and frequency, and changing human 
exposure and vulnerability to floods—which are even less predictable than the 
climate. Most of the world’s major rivers are embanked to ―protect‖ communities 
from floods. Embankments—which represent a significant investment largely of 
public funds—are a manifestation of the professionalism of engineers and 
hydrologists. They are also the result of professional and political entrapment and a 
technological frame that grows in strength (probably non-linearly) by positive 
feedback to produce technological lock-in. This results in inertia in large socio-
technological systems, with little incentive to adopt more adaptive and flexible 
solutions, including non-structural measures—such as land-use zoning—even in 
the face of evidence that structural measures do not always reduce damage and, in 
some cases, actually make it worse. Where embankment breaches are common, 
damage is likely to increase as climate change induces larger floods, and lock-in and 
path dependence increase risk. Therefore, there is an urgent need for the mitigation 
of floods through non-structural measures that complement embankments. While 

                                                           
 College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, Smithfield; 4878 Queensland, 
Australia; Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, 

Canberra 0200, Australia; wasson.robertj@gmail.com.  

 Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Guwahati, 781039, India; 
arupjyotisaikia@gmail.com. 

 Competition Commission of India, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, 9th Floor, Office 
Block – 1, Kidwai Nagar (East), New Delhi 110023, India; bansalpriya1994@gmail.com.  

 Tembusu College, National University of Singapore, 138598, Singapore; 
joon@nus.edu.sg. 

Copyright © Wasson, Saikia, Bansal, Chuah 2020. Released under Creative Commons 
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0) by the authors.  

Published by Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE), c/o Institute of Economic 
Growth, University Enclave, North Campus, Delhi 110007.  

ISSN: 2581-6152 (print); 2581-6101 (web). 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v3i2.150  

https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v3i2.150


Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [84] 

 

the phenomena we describe in this paper are common in many countries, as well as 
in many states in India, it will focus on data from the Brahmaputra River catchment 
in Assam. 

Keywords: Flood Damage, Assam, Embankments, Technological Lock-in 

 

1. INTRODUCTION 

Even before Independence, India’s main flood mitigation policy 
intervention has been the construction of embankments. While there are 
other flood mitigation strategies, including issuing warnings; providing 
refuges; creating rescue plans and emergency medical facilities; river 
dredging; and facilitating education, embankments are widespread and 
appear to dominate the thinking of decision-makers—if the speeches made 
by politicians after floods are any guide. The dominance of embankments 
appears to be an example of technological lock-in, whereby one solution 
gains ground and others are marginalized. Lock-ins produce inflexibility in 
decision-making, which, we argue, reduces the region’s adaptive capacity 
given both current circumstances and future climatic conditions that may 
produce larger floods. 

Climate change is likely to be accompanied by more intense rainfall and 
higher flood peaks in many of India’s rivers (Kumar et al. 2013), but the 
uncertainties attached to climate projections make it unpredictable. This 
problem prompted Kumar et al. (2013) to comment that adaptation 
strategies should be both robust and flexible. In other words, keep your 
options open—which is the opposite of a lock-in, where options can be 
extremely limited. Before proceeding to a case study of embankment 
construction in Assam, we will make a foray into the key concepts of 
technological lock-in. While embankments are not particularly high-tech, we 
will show that the analysis of high-tech industries and activities can be 
applied to flood mitigation to generate useful findings. We suggest that the 
conceptual framework applied to high-tech industries and environmental 
management may have wider applications. 

 

2. KEY CONCEPTS 

2.1. Technological lock-in and system dynamics 

Most studies of technological lock-in have been in the realm of 
manufacturing, particularly the production of high-tech goods. But some 
have also paid attention to examples in environmental management (Kline 
2001), such as the lock-in of pesticide use for pest management and in 



[85] Robert Wasson, Arupjyoti Saikia, Priya Bansal and Chuah Chong Joon 

 

hydrocarbon-intensive industries (Arthur 1996; Unruh 2002). While they 
differ from the case of embankments as a form of technological lock-in, 
studies of high-tech manufacturers nonetheless provide useful guidance and 
analogues for key concepts that help explain historical trends in flood 
mitigation policies. They also identify ways to unlock the locked. 

There are two general explanations of lock-in. The first is the idea that lock-
in reflects what Nelson and Winter (1977) describe as ―technological 
regimes‖ (or epistemic communities), whereby rules, heuristics, or 
principles define the boundaries of thought and action, particularly those of 
technocrats such as engineers. This leads to specific directions of 
development that build on past experience, becoming very powerful means 
that exclude other solutions (Dosi 1982). Second is the idea of increasing 
returns (or benefits). This involves positive feedback, whereby the 
attractiveness of a particular technology increases the more it is adopted 
(David 1985; Arthur 1989). Positive feedback (also known as reinforcing 
feedback or ―success to the successful‖) is a system dynamics (SD) concept 
according to which the direction of change is reinforced (Meadows 2008). 
That is, if variable A increases (or decreases) then variable B will increase 
(or decrease), all else being equal. But variable B can also affect variable A, 
thereby forming a positive feedback loop. In different words, a feedback 
process (or loop) involves at least two coupled variables, where an initial 
change (or perturbation) of one (A) causes a change in the other (B), which 
causes further change in the first (A). For more insights into these 
processes in relation to floods, see Barendrecht, Viglione, and Blöschl 
(2017), Srinivasan et al. (2017), and Newell and Wasson (2002). 

2.2 Socio-technological realms, techno-politics, technological frames, 
and political and professional entrapment 

The variables in SD are usually represented as stocks, that is, accumulations 
of materials, information, or ideas in a system over time (Meadows 2008). 
The feedback between stocks is conceptualized as flows that change their 
size. In relation to the problem of technological lock-in concerning flood 
mitigation, it is useful to refer to the idea of technological regimes, whereby 
a set of ideas (and methods) among engineers, bureaucrats, and politicians 
shape the development of policy and its implementation in a socio-
technological realm (Colven 2017) where society is moulded by technology 
and vice versa—creating another set of feedbacks. But in the words of 
Bijker (2007), dikes (also known as embankments, levees, or bunds) and 
dams are thick with politics (with a lower case ―p‖, so not only the politics 
of politicians). That is, they are not just a technical matter that need design 
and implementation. This idea can also be constructed as a form of techno-



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [86] 

 

politics, where technology, politics, and society are co-produced, and a 
techno-political network formed, bringing together political-economic 
interests, globalized expertise (consultants in particular), and flows of capital 
(Sneddon 2015), all by the medium of positive feedback. Kaika (2006) goes 
further to argue that large water infrastructure projects are central to state-
building, developmentalist agendas and the pursuit of modernity, and 
symbolize the control of nature. 

While positive feedback is in place, the system will head in a particular 
direction. But the construction of embankments will eventually lead to the 
development of a negative feedback loop as, for example, the cost of 
maintenance increases. A negative feedback loop is one in which as variable 
A increases (or decreases), variable B decreases (or increases) and then 
feeds back to variable A. This is a stabilizing loop. 

Though some believe there is a trend toward softer approaches to flood 
mitigation to complement (or even replace) hard engineering solutions—
which have dominated in the so-called ―hydraulic age‖, most notably in the 
Netherlands (Rijke et al. 2012)—the creation of technological regimes, 
socio-technological realms, and techno-politics, all with strong positive 
feedback, have created, in many countries, obdurate practices and value 
systems. As Bijker (2007) sees it, people deeply engaged in these 
technological frames have difficulty imagining other ways of dealing with 
risk. A good example of this is the US Army Corps of Engineers, whose 
only solution to flooding for many decades was the construction of levees. 
The ―hydraulic age‖ is not over, as we can see in Indonesia, India, China, 
Australia, and elsewhere. In fact, it never went away, as evidenced by the 
recent upsurge in the construction of large dams (Merme et al. 2014). 

For Brown, Ashley, and Farrelly (2011), these technological frames 
represent political and professional entrapment where there is political risk 
in moving in a different direction or not taking action after a flood—for 
example, by promising more (visible) protective infrastructure, fearfulness 
on the part of professionals in government agencies to speak their minds 
and therefore challenge the agency’s position. There is also a fear among 
professional government agencies of losing their power if a broader set of 
mitigation strategies is contemplated, especially if there is to be a hybrid 
governance system that involves wide participation. Obdurate institutional 
arrangements, technological frames, and political and professional 
entrapment maintain and enhance the status quo, whatever it may be. To 
this rich mix, we can add the financialization of infrastructure (Loftus and 
March 2015). Investment in infrastructure is considered a way of mopping 
up over-accumulated capital in the over-developed world. Analogous to the 



[87] Robert Wasson, Arupjyoti Saikia, Priya Bansal and Chuah Chong Joon 

 

case of the London desalination plant (whose main objective, according to 
Loftus and March (2015), was ensuring inflation-protected returns for 
institutional investors rather than the provision of clean water), 
embankment construction in many less developed countries appears to be 
about securing profits for construction companies, kickbacks to elites, and 
political power. Many countries do not emulate the objectives of the Dutch, 
who build dikes to keep the water out at all costs. By contrast, in the United 
States, the government accepts flooding, even in the presence of dikes, and 
places more reliance on insurance and warnings based on predictions 
(Bijker 2007). Both countries, of course, have a very different set of 
experiences of floods, and in the Netherlands, flood protection is an 
existential issue. In India, the objectives are the protection of lives, 
property, and revenues to the state by the total exclusion of floods from 
areas beyond embanked rivers. 

2.3. Historical triggers 

The Brahmaputra River in Northeast India rises in Tibet and flows through 
the Tsangpo Gorge to become the Siang River. Then, after being joined by 
many tributaries, it becomes the Brahmaputra, and leaves India at the 
Bangladesh border (Figure 1). In Assam, the floodplains of the 
Brahmaputra and its tributaries are extremely flood-prone, having 

experienced a total economic damage of ₹20,772.76 crore (107) to crops, 
housing, and public utilities between 1953 and 2011 and an average annual 

economic damage of ₹352.08 crore (in 2017 prices), according to data made 
available by the Central Water Commission (CWC). The range of annual 
total flood damage in Assam is enormous, from an estimated minimum of 

zero (which is of uncertain veracity) to ₹3,394.84 crore. The people of 
Assam would be better off with more effective flood mitigation. But first 
the government would need to reduce its reliance on embankments and 
help overcome technological lock-in. 

As we have already explained, technological lock-in is a result of positive 
feedback that produces path dependence—continued adherence to a 
product or idea because of the historical trajectories of ideas and decisions, 
even in the presence of better products and ideas (Liebowitz and Margolis 
1995). These trajectories may start from small beginnings or triggering 
events. This suggests that history matters in lock-in, an idea brought to the 
fore by Arthur (1989) in the case of competing technologies. 

For positive feedback systems, it is worth quoting Arthur (1989): 

Insignificant circumstances become magnified by positive feedbacks to ―tip‖ 
the system into the actual outcome ―selected‖. The small events of history 



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [88] 

 

Figure 1: A map of the Brahmaputra River and its catchment from Tibet to 
Bangladesh 

 

Source: Shukla Acharjee, Dibrugarh University 

become important. Where we observe the predominance of one technology or 
one economic outcome over its competitors, we should be cautious of any 
exercise that seeks the means by which the winner’s innate ―superiority‖ came 
to be translated into adoption. (127) 

In other words, that a particular technology, such as embankments, has 
won the race does not make it superior to its alternatives. The superiority of 
any technology needs to be demonstrated independent of the path by which 
it came to dominate the field. 

The disproportionate response to a ―small event‖ (in this case, a flood)—
the building of many hundreds of kilometres of embankments—shows that 
the positive feedback is non-linear. The quantitative nature of this 
relationship is unlikely to be exponential or super-exponential, because each 
of these functions implies increasing resourcing at an accelerating rate. The 
most commonly used function to describe the diffusion of innovation, 
including infrastructure, is the logistic curve: 

)XX(Ke/L)X(f 01   



[89] Robert Wasson, Arupjyoti Saikia, Priya Bansal and Chuah Chong Joon 

 

Figure 2: Length of embankments and normalized total economic flood-related 
economic damages in Assam from 1953 to 2012  

 

Source: Partha Jyoti Das, pers. comm. 2018 for embankment data and Central 
Water Commission for the damage data. 

where e is the natural logarithmic base, 0X  is the X -value of the sigmoid’s 

midpoint, L  is the curve’s maximum value, and K  is the steepness of the 
curve. The curve is S-shaped, rising to the midpoint; then it increases at a 
decreasing rate. This function has been used to model the spread of 
innovation, with an initial exponential spurt of activity and then a 
slowdown, as competitors become more effective (Grübler 1990).  

Data from Assam (Partha Jyoti Das, pers. comm., 2018) suggest a variant of 
the standard logistic curve, with a rapid increase in cumulative embankment 
length, which increases at a decreasing rate until the rate of change drops to 
zero from the early 1990s (Figure 2). The initial increase is a result of the 
early effects of positive feedback with high levels of enthusiasm, 
expectations, and resourcing. The slowdown may be a result of decreasing 
opportunities for construction, rising costs of maintenance, and a slowing 
of revenue injections as other priorities take over. We would require a 
detailed history of embankment construction and associated costs to test 
these explanations of the curve in Figure 2. However, the Comptroller and 
Auditor General of India (2017) provides some insights into the possible 
reasons for the slowdown: delays and shortfalls in the sanctioning of funds; 



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [90] 

 

the diversion of funds sanctioned for flood control to unapproved work; 
major delays in work; poor design and implementation, leading to 
embankment failure; and weak technical skills in the states responsible for 
flood protection. All of these factors can slow the development of flood 
mitigation infrastructure. 

Figure 2 is an example of an external-influence logistic function, the basic 
model for which is 

)]t(NNt[a
dT

)t(dN
  

where )t(N is the cumulative number of adopters at time t , tN is the total 

number of potential adopters at time t , 
dT

)t(dN
 is the rate of diffusion at 

time t , and the constant a  is a change agent that is equal to the coefficient 
of diffusion (Kumar 2015). For application to the problem of embankment 
construction, adopters and potential adopters are assumed to be equivalent 
to the length of embankments. The key difference between this equation 
and others presented by Kumar (2015) for cases where there are external 
influences, and mixtures of external and internal influences, is the inclusion 
of the constant a , a change agent. When influence comes from outside the 
wider society, decision-making is directed from the top, and communication 
is strongly hierarchical (Kijek and Kijek 2010; Kumar 2015). In Assam, the 
change agent is the politico-bureaucratic system. 

The best least squares fit for the trajectory of cumulative embankment 
length in Assam (Figure 2) is a four-parameter logistic curve: 

0675101961101

43117644
4311

.)X(log

)..(
.Y




  

where Y is cumulative length (100s of km), X is calendar date, the halfway 
point is 1961, and the r2 is 0.99, but with only six data points. 

2.4. Unlocking the locked 

The obvious way to unlock the locked is to initiate negative feedback. 
According to Arthur (1989), small historical events, such as small-scale trials 
of non-structural mitigation, will have no effect on this type of system, and 
history will be the carrier or deliverer of the inevitable. But a major flood 
that devastates an area where alternatives to embankments have been 
trialled could tip the system back into its former state of positive feedback, 
leading to the construction of more embankments. 



[91] Robert Wasson, Arupjyoti Saikia, Priya Bansal and Chuah Chong Joon 

 

There is, however, a larger problem. As we have seen, technological frames, 
professional and political entrapment, and lock-in are highly resistant to 
change. An easy exit from a locked-in trajectory is unlikely because of 
significant sunk construction costs, the development and application of 
particular kinds of expertise, the political capital expenditure a change 
would entail, and reputational risk if a decades-long policy is suddenly 
reversed. For example, revenues to construction companies in the case of 
large infrastructure projects and kickbacks to elites will also be at risk if a 
major policy change is instituted. Nevertheless, according to Islas (1997), 
hybridization can allow marginalized solutions to emerge beside the 
dominant one, but only in niches not occupied by the dominant solution. 

2.5. Summary of key concepts 

A technological lock-in results from technological frames—stocks of ideas 
developed by professionals and decision-makers—that limit the range of 
solutions considered during policy formulation. Locked-in solutions are not 
necessarily superior just because they have been overwhelmingly adopted. 
We must determine superiority independently. There are many elements to 
technological frames, including socio-technological realms, political-
technological networks, and professional and political entrapment. A 
system’s trajectory will be unidirectional if positive feedback is in play once 
a historical event triggers a trajectory—and therefore path dependence—
that favours one technology or solution. As adoption increases, positive 
feedback in response to the ideas in the technological frame increases its 
power and acceptance, and more resources may become available, driving a 
non-linear response. In this process, other solutions are swept aside in the 
battle of ideas and the struggle for resources. There could be a slowing in 
the rate of adoption of embankments as space for easy construction 
reduces. Enthusiasm may also wane, especially in light of the damage 
created by breaches; and maintenance costs may increase along with other 
calls on the public purse. The result is a positive feedback function in 
Assam, which is a variant of a logistic curve that denotes external influences 
on the construction of embankments. 

It may be possible to unlock the locked by creating a negative feedback 
system, a prospect that is extremely difficult to achieve if the lock-in is 
obdurate. A path more likely to succeed would involve the development of 
a hybridized set of solutions, where we can find alternatives to the 
dominant solution in niches that it does not necessarily deal with well—or 
we could find solutions that complement the dominant one. 

 



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [92] 

 

3. THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF A 
TECHNOLOGICAL FRAME IN ASSAM 

Colven (2017) notes that to understand the allure of big infrastructure, ―we 
need to trace the emergence and evolution of the geographically and 
historically contingent techno-political networks through which such 
projects emerge‖ (261). This section attempts for Assam what Colven 
suggests, and is based mainly on Saikia (2019, Chapters 2, 7, and 11). 

As early as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, embankments (also 
known as alis in Assam) were constructed to protect small areas from 
floods, and for many years, farmers used low-level bunds to reduce the 
impact of floods but also to allow water and sediment to reach fields. This 
resulted in localized and moderate benefits. By the first few years of the 
twentieth century, there were only 180 km of high embankments in Assam. 
A committee established by J. B. Fuller, the Chief Commissioner of Assam 
under the British Raj, investigated the possibility that embankments could 
allow larger areas to be cultivated and damage to crops reduced. It 
examined additional questions that are still pertinent today, many of which 
have not been answered satisfactorily, such as: what would be the 
consequences of depriving land of silt and its natural fertilizing role? 
Peasants interviewed by the committee raised this issue; they also raised 
issues of waterlogging behind embankments, pointing out their failure. In 
addition, they asked if riverbeds would rise relative to floodplains because 
of sediment accumulation between embankments and due to sediment 
starvation on the floodplains behind embankments. The committee also 
wanted to know if larger areas of cultivation would increase revenue, a key 
concern for the British Raj.  

The Fuller committee received varying opinions about the wisdom of 
embankment construction, ranging from views that embankments were not 
necessary for the protection of agriculture—as there was plenty of 
cultivable land—to beliefs that riverbeds may either rise by sediment 
accumulation (relative to floodplains) or decline because of erosion by high-
velocity flood flows trapped between embankments, and concerns that the 
revenue increase from protected land would be much smaller than the cost 
of constructing and maintaining embankments. However, the committee 
found evidence in favour of embankments, and in 1903, received approval 
for the construction of new embankments on two tributaries of the 
Brahmaputra, followed by increased land revenue assessment. 

But the debate about the wisdom of embankments continued, largely 
revolving around concerns regarding the lack of natural fertilization and the 
problem of waterlogging, as embankments prevented the drainage of 



[93] Robert Wasson, Arupjyoti Saikia, Priya Bansal and Chuah Chong Joon 

 

floodwater and presumably ponded rainwater (Hart 1906). In the past, 
during particularly wet seasons, peasants would relocate to drier land, but 
this became difficult when property laws became less flexible and the 
population and the area of settled agriculture increased during the British 
period, thereby making the relinquishment of land almost impossible. For 
some people, waterlogging became an intractable problem. The agricultural 
chemist and soil scientist, A. A. Meggitt, supported the peasants’ view that 
natural fertilizing was essential, and suggested the installation of flood sluice 
gates to enable this process (Chief Secretary 1909). Lechmere-Oertel (1918), 
an engineer with the Public Works Department, argued against 
embankments on the same grounds as Meggitt. Additionally, Spring (1903), 
the Chief Engineer of India’s Public Works Department, wrote in praise of 
the traditional method of living with floods, whereby people moved their 
meagre possessions to higher ground in family boats. 

To this contentious milieu was added the construction of railway lines on 
embankments from 1903 onward, most of which were built on floodplains 
by 1930 (Public Works Department 1929–30). These embankments 
disturbed lowland drainage paths and therefore blocked the drainage of 
floodwaters, rendering some low-lying areas unfit for cultivation and 
causing havoc when they breached (The Times of India 1934). An 
investigative committee formed after the 1929 flood found conflicting 
views among peasants, depending on whether they lived ―inside‖ or 
―outside‖ a railway embankment (Lines 1930). Those ―outside‖ the 
embankments were content, while those ―inside‖ were not. 

By the mid-1930s, flooding in Assam was gaining more attention from both 
the government and the international press (e.g., Western Argus 1934) with 
widespread destruction of crops, houses, and livestock (Wall Street Journal 
1934). For the colonial government, the impact on revenue of the 
destruction of jute crop was particularly important, as the Brahmaputra 
Valley had become the principal jute-growing area in South Asia by the 
1930s. This widespread cultivation of jute followed debates about the 
wisdom of using land that the local people did not cultivate because of 
flooding, except for temporary mustard and vegetable crops during the 
winter and some summer rice, although jute was believed capable of 
withstanding floods (Saikia 2015). But the influx of peasants, mainly from 
East Bengal (now Bangladesh), mostly to grow jute, was well underway, 
making the debate almost pointless. Between the censuses of 1911 and 
1951, 1–1.5 million migrants had moved into Assam, constituting between 
one-tenth and one-sixth of the total population. The cropped area 
approximately doubled, areas of settlement increased, and the cultivation of 
jute, sugarcane, mustard, and winter and autumn rice increased in the areas 



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [94] 

 

occupied by these hard-working migrants (Doullah 2003; Goswami 1994; 
Chakraborty 2012). This transformation of agriculture in Assam was not 
only aided by the construction of embankments—embankments were 
themselves necessary for the maintenance of increased revenue flow to the 
government’s coffers. 

After the flood of 1934, Shaw (1935), an engineer with the Public Works 
Department, prepared a report in which he noted that the area was prone to 
some of the heaviest rainfall in the world and, when combined with large-
scale reclamation of land for jute cultivation, much of the lower valley was 
at risk of economically damaging floods. Shaw also argued against 
embankments, writing that they ―constitute a gross interference with the 
natural regime of the river‖ (8). He listed solutions such as relief payments 
to peasants, remission of land revenue, and new land grants, some of which 
were enacted (Saikia 2014). In addition, he found that the new migrants 
who arrived to grow jute did not grow food, so they became vulnerable to 
flood-induced food shortages. 

The 1946 flood in Assam spawned yet another report, this time by S. C. 
Majumdar, an engineer with considerable experience of floods in Bengal. 
Majumdar (1948, 1956) concluded inter alia that embankments defy nature 
and should only be used on rivers that are relatively stable, and that 
embankments can cause disasters by raising the intensity with which floods 
reach floodplains, because of sedimentation within channels between 
embankments, thereby causing more damage than would occur without 
embankments and also resulting in the need for higher and stronger 
embankments until they provide no protection. He added that 
embankments should not be viewed as permanent solutions, and the old 
embankments of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries CE created vast 
swamps at a lower level than the surrounding land, which continued to 
receive sediment. Majumdar made the obvious remark that floods are 
shallower and less dangerous if allowed to spread across floodplains rather 
than being pent up behind embankments that can easily breach. 

The bureaucrats of Assam continued to oppose embankments, so that by 
1947, there were only 11 km of new embankments (RBA 1980). The 
Government of India declared embankments unsuccessful as flood 
protection devices (Ministry of Information and Broadcasting 1949); after 
the 1950 earthquake and floods, the technocrat G. C. Garg and Kumud 
Bhushan Ray (special officer for rivers in Assam’s Public Works 
Department) advised against embankments. Ray (1954) concluded that 
embankments were costly and non-remunerative, and did not provide 
protection against large floods. 



[95] Robert Wasson, Arupjyoti Saikia, Priya Bansal and Chuah Chong Joon 

 

Prior to 1954, there was no unified technological frame in favour of 
embankments in Assam. Many bureaucrats and engineers were not 
convinced of the efficacy of embankments. They cited the unintended 
consequences of waterlogging, sand deposition on agricultural land during 
breaching, and reduced natural fertilization of fields through sedimentation. 
By this time, there had been many flood events (the ―small events‖ 
referenced in Arthur [1989]) that could have triggered the consolidation of a 
technological frame in support of embankments, particularly in 1929, the 
mid-1930s (especially 1934), 1946, and 1950, each of which was followed by 
a government investigation. But none of these events triggered this 
consolidation. 

The 1950 earthquake, with a magnitude of 8.6, devastated Assam, and was 
followed in 1952, 1953, 1954, and 1955 by severe floods that damaged 

crops worth ₹13.5 crore in 1953–1955 (₹520 crore and US$2.1 million in 
2017 prices; there are no data for 1952) and destroyed 65% of the paddy 
and 53% of the jute. It was claimed that inundation covered 31,000 sq km 
(an implausible 40% of the state), and affected about 1.2 million people 
(Assam Government 1956). These floods eroded riverbanks and swept 
away agricultural land, villages, and lives, depositing sand on land that had 
once been cultivable. Some towns vanished while others faced massive 
erosion. The town of Dibrugarh had begun serious attempts at riverbank 
protection in 1935 after the 1934 flood, with anchored trees, brushwood 
screens, tree branch revetments, and anchored floating bamboo cages. 
Some 450 m of a planned 6 km stone revetment was finished before the 
monsoon of 1954 struck, and floodwaters outflanked the entire structure. 
The situation was so serious that the then Prime Minister, Pundit Jawaharlal 
Nehru, took charge and paid a visit, entrusting to the Central Water and 
Power Commission (CPWC) with the responsibility of protecting the town 
from further floods (Ray 1956; Singh et al. 2004).  

The flood of 1954 not only swept away lives—it also swept away 
apprehensions about embankments, at least in government offices. A 
simplified version of the Assam Embankment and Drainage Act 1941, 
enacted in 1954, enabled embankment construction. About 855 km of 
embankments were completed swiftly (Verghese 1954). An Indian 
delegation to China reinforced the value of embankments (Sain 1954) and 
Reddy (1954) provided a glowing report on China’s use of embankments to 
control floods. Engineers of the CPWC began arriving in Assam, training in 
surveying and construction methods was arranged, and labour for 
embankment construction recruited (Verghese 1854). 



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [96] 

 

The flood of 1954 was the ―small event‖ in Arthur’s (1989) 
conceptualization of how positive feedback is triggered by a seemingly 
insignificant event and leads to an outcome that is disproportionally large. 
As a result, one option gets locked-in, and path dependence begins. These 
small events of history are important, and although the residents of Assam 
who lost their property and loved ones may not see the floods of the 1950s 
as ―small events‖, they appear to meet the requirements of Arthur’s model. 
But why did the earlier floods not create the same path dependence? The 
answer may lie in the personal intervention of India’s first prime minister 
and the institutionalization of a response in the CPWC. Whatever the 
answer, it is clear that the 1954 flood turned the tide of government 
opinion—and thus path dependence began. 

The most visible protection works were in the town of Dibrugarh, which 
had suffered serious flood damage. Embankments built in 1954–1956 were 
raised and strengthened in 1963–1966, 1977, and 1980, and again after 
flood damage in 1988, and to this day continue to be refurbished, partly as a 
result of the heightened level of floods resulting from the increasing 
channel bed level (UN-Habitat 2002; ADB 2009). 

Other ideas were proffered to mitigate floods, such as cleaning drainage 
channels, digging a deeper channel for the Brahmaputra (which has now 
been trialled), beginning reforestation of the catchment to slow storm 
runoff, raising villages, and constructing storage reservoirs (Kingdon-Ward 
1950; The Times of India 1954; Ray 1956). But the push for embankments 
was well underway, along with the restoration of some abandoned channels 
to promote drainage, the digging of new drains, and the promotion of 
sedimentation in some areas to raise land levels (RBA 1980). Although 
some still doubted the efficacy of embankments in the face of mighty 
natural forces, by 1978, a total of 4,000 km of embankments had been 
constructed in Assam, along with at least 700 km of drainage channels. 
Breaches had occurred in some new embankments within a year of 
construction, and some caused conflicts with villagers, but construction 
continued, as those in favour of the policy continued to accrue political and 
economic benefits. By the end of the twentieth century, about 1,000 km of 
embankments had been constructed along the Brahmaputra, measuring 
about two-thirds the total length of the river. Since then, embankments 
have been further extended along tributaries. Rivers in about 50% of 
Assam’s total flood-prone area were embanked about a decade ago (Asian 
Development Bank 2010).  

Our field observations and informal discussions with villagers and 
government officials in Upper Assam show that many people have now 



[97] Robert Wasson, Arupjyoti Saikia, Priya Bansal and Chuah Chong Joon 

 

become dependent on embankments for refuge during the worst floods. 
Some have replaced their traditional stilt houses with concrete 
constructions on the ground. Similarly, they have also built schools and 
meeting halls near embankments; and they are now using previously 
uncultivated land just behind embankments. Hazarika et al. (2016) found 
from surveys in Dhemaji District that the construction of embankments has 
attracted several people to live and cultivate the land near the rivers, and 
that the occurrence of floods, in the minds of local people, is synonymous 
with breaching of embankments. According to their study, even though 
embankments are refuges, breaches do more damage than floods in places 
where there are no embankments. 

Many factors have produced the current, embankment-dominated flood 
policy in Assam. The most important ones appear to be a need to protect 
valuable assets such as towns and cultivated areas; increase the area of 
cultivation; and protect and increase government revenue from cash crops, 
the most important of which was jute. This process has a history of more 
than a century, with the establishment of jute and the importation of 
migrants from East Bengal to grow the jute, both initiated by the colonial 
government. The path dependence of increasing embankments resulted 
from positive feedback between the maintenance and protection of cash 
crops and revenues, and from technological entrapment and a growing 
technological frame. 

The historical trigger for this path dependence was the flood of 1954, even 
though there had been earlier floods of similar magnitude with similar 
destructive outcomes. Political involvement and institutionalized responses 
appear to have tipped the balance in favour of embankments, and the 
technological frame established was able to sideline differing views about 
the efficacy of embankments. 

 

4. THE FITNESS OF EMBANKMENTS 

Fitness is a concept that analysts of high-technology products use to decide 
whether path dependence produces the most fit goods—or something that 
is sub-optimal. While Arthur (1989) argued that sub-optimal outcomes are 
common, later researchers criticized this conclusion (e.g., Islas 1997). 

While a full exposition of ongoing research by the authors into this 
important topic is not possible here, we have analysed data from the CWC 
for trends in death and economic damage, normalized by total population 
and GDP/capita, respectively. Using the non-parametric Mann-Kendall 
Tau (b) test for all-India data, we have found an increasing trend in adjusted 



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [98] 

 

damage from 1953 to 2011 (p<0.01), but no trend in adjusted deaths. 
However, from 1982 to 2011, when embankments were much more 
extensive than earlier, normalized deaths decreased (p<0.01), but there is no 
trend in normalized damage. The area affected by floods also declined 
between 1982 and 2011 (p<0.01), confounding any simple explanation of 
these results, although the smaller area of flood-affected land may explain 
the reduced deaths. This complication notwithstanding, Figure 2 shows that 
normalized total economic damage was at its highest between 1986 and 
1989, when the length of embankments was almost at its greatest extent. It 
is not at all clear whether embankments make a large difference to deaths 
and damage because breaches occur during large floods, or because 
embankments are outflanked when incomplete—a result consistent with 
the modelling results of Barendrecht et al. (2017). 

 

5. RIVER LINKING: ANOTHER POWERFUL TECHNO-
LOGICAL FRAME 

The long-standing technological frame created by engineers, hydrologists, 
bureaucrats, and politicians lives on in India, exemplified by the River 
Linking Plan (Alley 2004; Rao 2003). This ambitious plan to link India’s 
major rivers aims to provide irrigation water to drought-prone areas, 
generate additional hydroelectric power, and reduce the extent of flooding. 
The scheme calls for the construction of a great many dams and canals. It is 
not at all clear how the plan will alleviate floods, except possibly by building 
large dams to absorb flood flows—an uncertain option if the dams are 
mainly intended for the supply of irrigation water and the generation of 
hydroelectricity. Simultaneously meeting these three objectives is not easy. 
Rao (2003) notes that the likely transfer from the Ganga to the Cauvery 
River, for example, will amount to only 2.5% of the maximum flood flow in 
the Ganga, a figure too small to have any effect on floods in the Ganga. But 
there do not appear to have been any publicly available analyses of the ways 
in which the plan may alleviate flooding. Alley (2004) argues that scientific 
data and detailed plans for the scheme are deliberately withheld from public 
scrutiny, leaving non-government experts and members of NGOs no 
option but to polarize the debate and reject the scheme, given that its risks 
cannot be analysed independently and appear large in the absence of other 
information.  

The solution to big water problems in India continues to be big 
infrastructure projects, where a strong technological frame sidelines all 
objections and alternatives. The creation of a broad-based and 
knowledgeable epistemic community is not possible, so aspects of the 



[99] Robert Wasson, Arupjyoti Saikia, Priya Bansal and Chuah Chong Joon 

 

scheme that should be assessed outside its formative technological frame 
are not assessed, and serious problems may emerge. For example, about 
34% of the gross erosion of Indian soils is deposited in reservoirs, with a 
resulting annual average water storage loss of 1.04% and an upper value of 
0.8% per annum in large reservoirs (51>1000 mm3 capacity) (Sharda and 
Ojasvi 2016). Is this loss of storage capacity, and the attendant loss of flood 
absorption, being considered in government planning for river linking? 
Further, the state has prepared Emergency Action Plans for only 7% of the 
existing large dams in India and Operating Manuals for only 5% 
(Comptroller and Auditor General of India 2017). If the river linking 
scheme is to generate many more large dams, how will it ensure their safety, 
given the slow development of preparedness to date? 

 

6. CONCLUDING REMARKS 

From the analysis presented here, it appears that there has been lock-in of 
embankments in Assam as the main flood mitigation strategy. This is a 
region characterized by an extraordinarily volatile and fluid landscape, and it 
appears that lock-in may also have occurred in other Indian states as well 
(see D’Souza 2006). An analysis of death and damage data shows that 
though embankments have had some effect, they have certainly not solved 
the problem. In some cases, they have exacerbated deaths and damage 
when they have breached or have been outflanked. So lock-in has produced 
a sub-optimal result, but one that has nonetheless had some benefits, such 
as acting as a refuge and protecting some land and villages. 

A major shift in Indian flood mitigation policy away from embankments 
appears to be unlikely, since it is driven by a top–down approach. We have 
seen this in the external influence logistic descriptor of the history of 
embankment construction in Assam and the prevailing strong and obdurate 
technological frame, exemplified by the river linking project. It is more 
likely that policies that complement embankments will succeed only if they 
fill a niche not already occupied by embankments. Such policies are 
floodplain planning and the enforcement of zoning; better warnings; 
implementation of the building code; insurance; relief schemes tailored to 
levels of risk, so that those who choose to live or rebuild in high-risk areas 
get little or no flood relief apart from humanitarian aid during and 
immediately after a flood; and relocation of highly exposed and vulnerable 
populations. These solutions may be applicable where embankments have 
not been built, and in the long run, they could demonstrate an approach 
that will replace embankments. 



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [100] 

 

We require a more flexible and holistic set of flood mitigation policies in 
the face of climate change, given that rainfall intensities and flood peaks are 
likely to get larger. Embankments alone are insufficient, and at times, even 
dangerous.  

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

We thank two anonymous referees for their comments, Shukla Acharjee of 
Dibrugarh University for Figure 1, the National University of Singapore for 
funding, and Partha Jyoti Das of Aaranyak for the embankment length data. 

 

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Figure 4: 
Descriptive 
statistics on 
survey 
statements 
designed to 
quantify 
fisherfolk’s 
opinions 
about the 
MNP 

 

Source: 
Authors 

Note: We 
measured 
responses to 
statements on 
a five-point 
Likert scale 
and 
subsequently 
reduced it to a 
three-point 
Likert scale: 
Disagree (D), 
Neutral/Neith
er agree nor 
disagree (N), 
and Agree 
(A). 

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https://www.wsj.com/news/archive/20200402
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/title/100

