Page 82 - Changing Living Spaces

Haruhisa Asada

Figure 1 Study Area

Study Area
The Brahmaputra Valley, lying between the eastern Himalayas to the
north and the Meghalaya Plateau to the south, covers an area of 56,339
km2, which is 72 percent of the total area of Assam (Gopalkrishnan 2000,
31). It is about 750 km in length from east to west and about 80 km in
width from north to south. It is an alluvial area with an elevation of 30 m
in Dhubri in the west and 130 m in Tinsukia in the east.
The valley can be divided into three zones – the floodplain, the middle
plain and the foothills – according to the different ecological conditions,
which vary according to the distance from the main stream of the river.
The floodplain is seasonally inundated by the Brahmaputra and its trib-
utaries, including their sandbanks. The middle lowland zone is far from
the main stream, has a low risk of flooding, and is therefore suitable for
agriculture. The foothill zone is the transitional area between the valley
and the hills of Bhutan. It consists of coarse sediments, which makes it
difficult to obtain surface water.
This chapter examines the living spaces of different ethnic groups and
their adaptation to the local ecological environment in three regions of the
valley: the Lakhimpur district in the east, the Nagaon district in the cen-
tral region, and the Kamrup district in the west (figure 1). In Lakhimpur

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