Flood assessments often measure damage to homes, land and livelihoods, but overlook losses that cannot be priced. In North Bihar, recurring floods also erode dignity, social relationships, cultural identity and community ties. Integrating economic and non-economic assessments is essential to making recovery more meaningful and inclusive
During the webinar Beyond the Breach - Understanding Cascading Mountain Hazards in Nepal and Building Climate Resilience, organised by the Forum for Policy Dialogues on Water Conflicts in India on October 29, 2026, Krity Shrestha of DCA Nepal spoke about non-economic loss and damage (NELD). She drew attention to consequences often overlooked in disaster assessments, including damage to social relationships, cultural identity, dignity, emotional well-being and a sense of belonging. These effects shape people’s lives long after floodwater recedes. Her intervention brought me back to a question arising from Megh Pyne Abhiyan’s (MPA) household-level flood loss assessment in North Bihar. We examined what households lose when floods affect their homes, land, livelihoods and possessions. But what do people lose that cannot be priced? And what happens when those losses recur before communities have had time to recover?
North Bihar is not a uniformly flooded landscape. Its plains are crisscrossed by an extensive network of rivers and drainage channels, including major river systems such as the Gandak, Burhi Gandak, Bagmati, Kamla-Balan, Kosi and Mahananda, alongside numerous smaller, often unnamed rivers and streams. While embankments along some of the major rivers have altered the movement and spread of floodwater, the smaller rivers and local drainage channels follow their own courses, often creating distinct patterns of inundation and waterlogging. The resulting flood dynamics vary considerably across the region. Some settlements face sudden inundation following embankment breaches, while others experience prolonged waterlogging, erosion, drainage congestion or shifting river channels. In many places, the effects of one monsoon carry into the next.
For many communities in North Bihar, the end of a flood does not necessarily mean a return to normal life. The damage and disruption often continue long after the water recedes, affecting homes, livelihoods, social relationships and the local environment. Families may have little time to rebuild their savings, restore their livelihoods or regain a sense of security before the next flood arrives. The concern, therefore, extends beyond the damage recorded each year to the limited time families may have to restore their lives and livelihoods before the next flood.
MPA’s assessment covered 2,290 households in 134 wards and 21 panchayats across seven districts. It documented economic losses to land, houses and other assets, as well as how families managed during and after inundation. Focus group discussions and participatory flood mapping brought community experiences into the exercise. These methods offered insights beyond financial loss, but the assessment was not designed as a systematic NELD exercise. Bringing the two approaches together is a logical next step.
Economic assessment remains essential. It establishes material and financial consequences and can inform compensation, livelihood support and reconstruction. But the value of a damaged house cannot tell us what displacement does to family relationships. The cost of repairing a toilet cannot capture the loss of privacy experienced by women and adolescent girls living on raised roads or embankments, or the difficulties of managing menstruation without private spaces, water and sanitation. Nor can the number of school days missed capture the cumulative effects of interrupted education on children’s learning, confidence and development. Repeatedly losing classroom time can leave children behind their peers, limit opportunities to develop their capabilities and disadvantage them in pursuing higher education, skills and employment.
Older people, persons with disabilities and those living alone may lose independence when familiar surroundings, support systems and everyday services are disrupted. Families may become separated, informal care networks may weaken, and community spaces may become less accessible. River erosion can take more than homes and land. It can sever ancestral connections, familiar neighbourhood ties and relationships built over generations. Flooding may also disrupt festivals, customary practices, local markets and shared spaces. As younger generations become less connected to traditional understandings of rivers, soils, seasonal changes and cultivation, communities risk losing insights and practices developed over generations of living with the floodplain. These losses affect autonomy, belonging, cultural continuity and collective identity, yet rarely appear in post-flood damage records.
The opportunity is to bring economic assessment and NELD into a common framework, not to conduct two disconnected exercises. Household-level assessment can establish losses to land, housing, productive assets, livestock and livelihoods. A NELD assessment can examine how these material losses, displacement and wider disruption affect dignity, relationships, cultural practices, local knowledge and people’s ability to shape their futures. The approaches can inform each other. Household findings can indicate where deeper social consequences need investigation, while NELD can explain why similar material losses have different implications for different families and communities.
An integrated approach must reflect the diversity of North Bihar’s floodplains. The experience of a family affected by an embankment breach differs from that of a household living between embankments, in a waterlogged settlement or in a village facing progressive erosion. The nature of losses and the ability to recover also vary across households. Surveys can document economic impacts, while participatory discussions, community mapping and focused interviews can capture experiences that financial measures cannot. Communities must help identify what has changed and what they consider important to recover.
The value of integration lies in how this evidence shapes action. Economic estimates can guide compensation, housing reconstruction and livelihood restoration. NELD findings can help ensure that recovery also addresses the loss of community spaces, cultural practices, local knowledge and social support. Rebuilding a house, for example, may restore a physical asset without restoring a family’s connections to its original settlement or its place in community life. Both dimensions must inform decisions about what recovery requires.
Recovery cannot be measured simply by the return of physical assets or the completion of reconstruction. A household may regain a dwelling but find that its livelihood, social support and sense of security remain fragile. Similarly, relocation may provide safer housing while distancing families from the networks, resources and shared spaces on which everyday life depended. An integrated assessment can bring these less visible consequences into recovery planning and help identify what people need to regain stability, agency and meaningful connections with their communities.
Bihar has considerable experience recording flood-affected populations, distributing relief and estimating physical and economic damage. These functions remain indispensable. Integrating household-level economic assessment with NELD can build on this experience and give government departments, development partners, civil society organisations and local institutions a stronger basis for setting priorities, coordinating interventions and assessing recovery. It can also broaden the understanding of what constitutes a successful recovery.
Krity Shrestha’s intervention invites us to reconsider not only how flood losses are assessed, but also whose experiences inform recovery decisions. In North Bihar, bringing economic and non-economic dimensions together can help ensure that the priorities of affected households and communities are reflected in the decisions that shape their future. The strength of an integrated approach will ultimately lie in its ability to make recovery more responsive to the realities of life on a changing and repeatedly disrupted floodplain.
In North Bihar, bringing economic and non-economic dimensions together can help ensure that the priorities of affected households and communities are reflected in the decisions that shape their future. The strength of an integrated approach will ultimately lie in its ability to make recovery more responsive to the realities of life on a changing and repeatedly disrupted floodplain
The writer is Managing Trustee, Megh Pyne Abhiyan; Views presented are personal.