Basin assessments and capacity development strategy

Organisers: ICIMOD and Tsinghua University

About the event

Building on the success of the second authors’ workshops for the Indus and Yarlung Zangbo–Brahmaputra–Jamuna (YBJB) Basin Assessments held in December 2025, Tsinghua University, China is hosting the next phase of the basin assessment authors and capacity building strategy in Beijing. This gathering brings together leading authors and partners to accelerate cross-chapter harmonization and finalize near-complete drafts for editorial processing.

The Beijing meeting series is designed as three interconnected activities to maximise the value of bringing basin experts together in one location:

1. Third authors’ writeshop: Indus Basin Assessment | 7 April 2026
2. Capacity building strategy and design workshop | 8-9 April 2026
3. Third authors’ writeshop: Yarlung Zangbo–Brahmaputra–Jamuna Basin Assessment | 10 April 2026

This sequencing strengthens coherence across both assessments, deepens partner engagement with key partners in China, given China’s role the headwaters region for multiple major international rivers in the HKH.

The core component of the event is the capacity development strategy session, which focuses on translating advanced climate–water risk intelligence into routine institutional use across the HKH. Despite the availability of advanced hydrological modelling, Earth Observation (EO), and risk analytics, integrating these tools into sectors like hydropower, agriculture, and disaster risk management remains a challenge.

Building on climate–water scenarios and risk layers developed by ICIMOD and Tsinghua University, the workshop will:

• identify practical pathways for adopting these tools.
• develop a framework for institutional capacity.
• refine the operational vision for the HKH Hydroclimate Cloud Exchange (H2CX) as a shared, cloud-based service for trusted data and sector-specific decision tools, ensuring scaled uptake by national institutions.

Objectives

• Finalise near-complete drafts of the Indus and YBJ basin assessments for editorial processing and publication.
• Strengthen cross-chapter coordination and harmonisation, methods, terminology, figures, and cross-cutting themes.
• Engage partners in China and from the region for structured learning on decision-ready climate–water risk intelligence, focusing on uptake pathways, H2CX service functions, and capacity architecture for routine sector use.
• Consolidate the publication timeline and agree on a coordinated engagement approach leading up to the 2026 UN Water Conference.

Expected outputs:

• Consolidated, near-final draft manuscripts for both basin assessments, ready for internal review and editorial compilation.
• A comprehensive package ensuring alignment on methods, definitions, cross-references, figures, maps, and narrative flow.
• A concise capacity and uptake outputs package from the strategy workshop, covering priority sector use cases, key institutional uptake barriers/enablers, country adoption pathway briefs with “last mile” integration steps.
• Agreed publication roadmap (review, graphics, layout, and editorial steps) and 2026 engagement plan toward UN policy fora, including the UN Water Conference.

Funding and acknowledgements

This series is organised by ICIMOD’s River Basins intervention under the Cryosphere and Water Risks in the Climate and Environment Risks Strategic Group. The series is supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) through the TROSA Phase-2 project, with in-kind contributions from participating partners. ICIMOD gratefully acknowledges Tsinghua University for hosting the full series in Beijing.

Background

ICIMOD’s River Basins intervention supports riparian partners across the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) to strengthen climate resilience and transboundary cooperation through co-produced, policy-relevant basin knowledge products. Under RRB, basin networks are advancing collaborative science–policy processes to synthesize evidence, identify shared risks, and enable informed dialogue and action across upstream–downstream contexts. Within this framework, the Upper Indus Basin Network (UIBN) and the Yarlung Zangbo–Brahmaputra–Jamuna Basin Network (YBJBN) are co-producing basin assessments to consolidate the best available science on climate–cryosphere–hydrology dynamics, hazards and vulnerability, ecosystem services, and governance and cooperation needs. These assessments are designed to support practical decision-making, strengthen risk-informed planning, and provide a shared evidence base for regional learning and cooperation.