Poor infrastructure and land use worsen India’s monsoon floods

Nature & Climate Perspective

**Deforestation and rapid land-use conversion in Assam have severely eroded natural watershed absorption capacities, compounding seasonal flood severity and destabilizing regional carbon sinks. **

• Extensive clearing of riparian zones and wetland degradation impairs regional biodiversity and baseline hydrological regulation, increasing vulnerability to catastrophic runoff.
• Unplanned urban encroachment and canopy loss directly compromise LULUCF-related carbon stocks, raising the baseline risk of physical reversals for forest-based sequestration pools.
• Restoration through Nature-based Solutions (NbS), such as agroforestry and wetland rehabilitation, is critical for establishing long-term environmental stability and watershed resilience.

Market & Policy Outlook

**The structural and land-use failures underscore an urgent need to transition from vulnerable gray infrastructure to ICVCM-compliant Nature-based Solutions to secure supply chain and financial resilience. **

• Policy shifts must emphasize nature-based flood mitigation within national adaptation plans, potentially unlocking international climate finance via Article 6.2 and Article 6.4 crediting mechanisms.
• In the context of the ICVCM Core Carbon Principles (CCPs), localized environmental mismanagement highlights the necessity for rigorous environmental safeguards and robust permanence buffer pools in regional credit pricing.
• Corporations exposed to regional agricultural supply chains must integrate these physical climate and land-use risks into their Scope 3 and SBTi FLAG (Forest, Land, and Agriculture) target frameworks.