Beyond compensation: What coastal communities lose to a rising sea

The pristine, yellow sand beach of Tandahar village in Odisha is a nesting site for the endangered Olive Ridley turtle. Roughly 20 km south from the mouth of the Devi river in Puri district, the beach does not host fishing boats and endless tangles of nylon nets. Instead, groves of the native jhau (Casuarina) dot the beach in a protective fence.

However, this alluring landscape hides the tragedy of a village swallowed by the sea. In 1999, when super cyclone Paradip — the most intense storm to hit Odisha last century — battered the coasts, the sea ingressed about five kilometers and swept away the village. Only a few broken stones remain as evidence. The sand and grass have devoured the rest.

The village was rebuilt about a kilometre away from the sea, but not everything. It lost its centuries-old temple, the beach took over the playground, and the crematorium was washed away. The temple was rebuilt, the playground forgotten, while the dead are now bid farewell on the beach itself.

Similarly, landslides, floods in the mountains, erosion of beaches, and wildfires in forests lead to the loss of local geographical areas and ecology, to which the inhabiting communities are attached. 

Now, how does one quantify such losses? Where communities are deprived of intangible assets like forests, sacred groves, beaches, burial places, playgrounds, or places of worship due to climate change? These losses are incommensurable, i.e. they cannot be priced.

Such non-economic loss and damage (NELD) is defined as “a broad range of losses that are not easily quantifiable in financial terms or commonly traded in markets”, according to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a global climate treaty. These losses happen along with losses of property, assets, infrastructure, or agricultural production and revenue that can result from climate change. They lead to alteration of lives and livelihoods, even driving migration, loss of education, and degrading mental health, say experts. 

Unseen and uncounted

As the effects of climate change intensify each year, the NELD also compounds. In Tandahar, for example, the danger of the rehabilitated village’s submergence lurks with every cyclonic event, which is now an almost annual occurrence.

According to multiple villagers, the sea ingressed towards the village during every major cyclone like Phailin (2013), Titli (2018) and Fani (2019). “During every cyclone, everything gets damaged, and the entire village has to be evacuated to the nearby flood shelter,” said 47-year-old Bichitrananda Kalia, a milk trader and paddy farmer from Tandahar.

Fani, especially, was significantly damaging. It brought knee-deep water into Kalia’s home, and the salt water inundation spoiled his agricultural fields, leading to no crops growing for an entire year.

The effects of these losses are felt differently across generations, gender, age-groups and social classes. 

“Losing geography leads to other losses. The first loss is the right to land and right to resources. There arise psychological challenges. For example, catching a crab in a particular way is a skill set that is linked to a creek or a beach, which is not available elsewhere,” says Ranjan Panda, an Odisha-based climate crusader and sociologist.

“If one has lost a beach stretch where a particular crab exists, a part of their livelihood is gone. That leads to trauma that their skill set has become irrelevant, and they have to look for other livelihoods. This erodes the confidence of the people, that they don’t continue to have the same skill, traditional knowledge or livelihood,” he says.

According to him, this is happening in multiple communities across the Global South — from India to Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines — wherever there is an intricate link of people’s lives and livelihoods with local, geo-ecological factors. 

“Even a small change in geographical conditions affect the indigenous communities, as their lives, livelihoods, culture and knowledge systems are linked to local ecosystems,” says Panda — also known as the Water Man of Odisha for his pioneering work in water management and campaigns like ‘Healthy Rivers, Happy Cities’.

“Temples can be rebuilt, but for the burial grounds, there is a sense of cultural inheritance about a space. When that space is lost, society falls into disarray. The  belongingness to a certain geography is lost. Communities will find another place, but for at least one generation which is going through it, that loss is going to stay. For the next generation, things might be different,” he explains.

The Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage is the only international instrument that offers some hope in this regard. At COP28 held in Dubai, 198 countries reached a historic decision to create a fund for providing financial support to vulnerable countries hardest hit by climate impact. This fund aims to help such countries adapt and “respond to both economic and non-economic loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change, including extreme weather events and slow onset events.”

According to FRLD’s website, $817 million has been pledged as of November 25, 2025, while total contributions come up to $584 million. However, none of the funds has been yet disbursed to vulnerable countries. Even though NELD is considered a priority within loss and damage, there isn’t a specific percentage that is dedicated to it.

A matter of survival

For the residents at Tandahar, climate change forced an immediate reaction, and they had no choice but to fend for themselves. Around 100 km south from Tandahar, at the mouth of the enormous Chilika Lake, there is a slower but debilitating onset of change. The traditional fishing communities are gradually losing their identity as climate change and commercial fishing gradually choke their livelihoods.

Sikethro Mongo, 73, of Sanpatna village observed both fish catch dwindling and the amount of water in the lake reducing in the past 10 years. “The water has receded. If there is no water, there is no fish for us to catch,” said Mongo, who has been fishing for 60 years.

There are roughly 150 boats from the village of 340 families that go out for fishing now. The rest, mostly young men, have migrated for search of better earning prospects. In fact, all eight men that CarbonCopy spoke to at the village said their sons had migrated. 

This results in the breakdown of traditional skill and knowledge that has been passed down from father to son over centuries. It also leads to an erosion of a communal and individual identity.

This can already be evidenced in the village of Podampetta in Odisha’s Ganjam district, close to Andhra Pradesh. “There, the sea has taken over their land. They are fisherfolk, now they don’t have that identity. Many youth go away, being construction workers or work in cotton mills or tea estates. They don’t want to fish. Among the older folks, some still go back to the broken areas and spaces in their old habitat that have still not been engulfed by the sea,” says Panda. 

He further expands that beyond the immediate damages, there can be other losses of space. Some geographical locations which fisherfolk consider sacred — certain points where they start their fishing expeditions or stretches where they offer prayers, can change or be lost due to extreme weather events. 

“When that is lost, one generation suffers and the knowledge transmission to the next generation does not happen properly. How communities look at their identity – their belongingness to an area – is lost. Many communities feel very strongly about this, many people do not want to leave their place as they are culturally linked to their local gods and natural shrines with sacred importance, whose abodes are in the local areas,” says Panda. 

He adds that psychologically, that grief continues. “A structure can be rebuilt, but the connection being rebuilt is challenging, as they won’t feel a new place is their home.”

Fragmentation and evolution

While it does not cancel loss, grief and suffering, migration may not necessarily lead to the breakdown of culture. According to sociologist Amita Baviskar, people carry their intangible heritage with them as they migrate, including their gods, language and music.

“If you look at adivasis in most of peninsular India, they have been migrating for work for decades. There has long been a dynamic of communities being split with older people staying behind, the younger ones going away. If local livelihoods can't sustain them, they build a life in new places. Climate-induced changes only exacerbate this ongoing process by which communities are being made and remade,” says Baviskar, Professor of Environmental Studies, Sociology and Anthropology at Ashoka University. 

She further points out that the threat of climate-induced disasters may bring communities together, as they did to defend their forests through the Chipko movement in Uttarakhand in the 1970s. However, in today’s political climate, she feels that collective action for ecological security is harder to organise.

Baviskar says these cultural transformations are different for men and women, and the sense of loss is more pronounced for older people, especially women, according to Baviskar, who has authored the book ‘In the Belly of the River’. It is an account of Bhilala adivasis in the Narmada valley who are fighting against displacement by the Sardar Sarovar dam.

“Younger men are better placed to adapt to new circumstances. But what are the possibilities for women? How are older women holding on to the things they value?” she says.

“Women lose more than men when they are displaced because monetary compensation for land-based resources tends to go to men. Women’s rights are often violated. However, despite being discriminated against, women can often be more psychologically resilient than men. Women explained that, upon being married, they have to leave their natal home to go to their husband's village and household and start anew. Having to adapt to new conditions is part of what a woman must do throughout her life,” says Baviskar.

She also believes that rural communities may be better able to handle the psychological stress of climate uncertainty than more privileged urban populations. “Farmers live with chronic uncertainty: drought, untimely rain, floods, pests, prices, are all elements they have little control over. It requires enormous courage and resilience to deal with the ups and downs without being defeated. These qualities are going to be critical in the future,” says Baviskar.

This sort of survivalist pragmatism can be evidenced in the Satpada region of Chilika Lake. As the fish started declining, fisherfolk started indulging in tourism to even out their dwindling incomes. 

The fishing village of Alupatna at Satpada is now dependent on both fishing and tourism. According to 49-year-old Prashant Jena, 60% of their income comes from tourism, while the rest is provided by fishing. 

However, even here, the villagers managed to compensate for their economic loss, but not the loss of their fisherfolk identity. 

“The value of important things in life cannot be captured in monetary terms, nor can they be compensated for with money,” says Baviskar, when asked whether there is a possibility of constructing qualitative frameworks to help policymakers ‘value’ intangible assets.

Impassive policy

A fundamental challenge in adequately addressing NELD in India is the limited range of institutional mechanisms currently in place. At present, the primary formal processes available are relief and mitigation funds embedded within the broader disaster governance framework, explains Nihal Ranjit, a senior associate at the Indian Institute of Human Settlements (IIHS).

Addressing any sort of climatic disaster or an extreme weather event like a cyclone falls under the ambit of the State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA). In Odisha, the Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA) undertakes tactical measures of blanket and targeted evacuation of people before an impending cyclone.  In the immediate aftermath of the event, response activities include search and rescue and providing first aid and relief, explains Dr. Kamal Lochan Mishra, IAS, the executive director of OSDMA. 

Post-disaster, officials conduct a damage assessment of tangible assets such as public and private property, loss of domestic animals, etc by tehsildars and government officers like BDOs. Loss of human life is also assessed.  The ex gratia amount for loss of human life and compensation for damage is directly credited to the beneficiaries’ account. 

The State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) provides money for providing immediate relief in the aftermath of the disaster. The National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) is tapped for additional financial resources.

Non-economic loss and damage, however, are not accounted for in this compensatory process.

“First tell me how to measure the immeasurable, then I will tell you what the compensation is. Emotional losses cannot be compensated materially,” says Mishra.

But the SDRF does not compensate for the repair and restoration of public property like playgrounds. In cases of extensive damage, they may be covered under the repair grant of SDRF, but it is primarily used for repairing damage to physical infrastructure. Temples, which are generally private property, are outside the ambit of the fund.

The system, though, recognises that NELD exists, and is taking steps to help communities cope with such losses in the long term. Mental health, by far, is affected the most when such disasters strike.

“When it comes to NELD, the community has to be prepared to deal with the psychological trauma. When the community is stronger, it serves as the first line of defence. Training people in the community is important as they can act as caregivers and offer intangible support,” says Mishra.

To offer better psychological care in areas vulnerable to the worst impacts of climate change, OSDMA is piloting a training programme of aid volunteers with the help of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bengaluru. This is financially supported by the capacity building segment of the SDRF.

While this is a much needed and necessary policy action being undertaken, currently, there aren’t enough trained professionals to deal with mental health problems, especially as the number and scale of climate disasters are increasing every year. More importantly, NELD stretches far beyond just addressing mental health, but there are no policy instruments in place to address or even determine them. 

“NELD cannot be easily measured or quantified, nor is it homogeneous in nature, making it difficult to design a uniform policy response or compensatory mechanism. For instance, planned relocation may lead to feelings of sadness or grief, arising from the loss of landscape or a way of life. Such losses raise difficult questions about compensation, which is central to conversations about NELD, but there are no easy answers,” says Ranjit. 

“In such cases, one possible way forward may be to broaden resettlement packages beyond housing alone, by including support for rebuilding social and cultural spaces such as places of worship, community centres, and other shared institutions,” he expands.

A key step is to listen closely to affected communities so that relocation processes are more participatory and responsive to their needs and sensitivities, according to Ranjit. “Many communities are unwilling to relocate unless their village deity is moved with them. Planned relocation efforts need to be mindful of such concerns,” he says.

Satwiki Adla, a researcher and external consultant at IIHS, talks about using existing policy structures, and building on those to create a more robust system of providing relief during disaster. “Since women are more affected by climate change, tapping into Self Help Groups and innovating on ways to give support will help.

Ranjit also shares the example of coastal communities in Odisha and their dependence on mangroves. “Villagers did jatras (plays) and cultural activities at the mangroves site. Now, the mangroves have eroded, and are only a fragment of their memory now. They have no recording or photographic evidence of how their village looked like earlier. The way to address it is by keeping those memories alive through the people, rather than only relying on engineering solutions. Set up more funds to record oral histories — it can be in the forms of art like street plays, so that there is the retention and preservation of memories,” he says.

This way, the cultural memory will live on and be passed down to a generation which may be born in the resettled village, and has no physical memory of how and where their ancestors lived. 

It is clear that there needs to be definitive changes in how loss and damage, including the non-economic aspect, is addressed. Increased accountability and wider recognition of this issue will not only help affected communities in the long run, but is critical if proper adaptation is to be achieved.

Coming up next:
Part 2: The growing mental and economic trauma of climate-hit mountain communities