GESI-responsive springshed management in Nepal

About the event

The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), through the Himalayan Resilience Enabling Action Programme (HI-REAP), in collaboration with the National Water Supply and Sanitation, Research, Innovation and Capacity Development Centre, is organising a national-level Training of Trainers (ToT) to develop a pool of qualified resource persons to integrate springshed management into their regular training programs.

The five-day residential training will have three components: classroom lectures and exercises by experts, fieldwork for hands-on practice, and sharing good water management practices by participants. The training will focus on springshed management concepts, a six-step methodology for spring revival, traditional wisdom with advanced technologies, and action planning. Classroom-based lectures will take place at the NWSSRICDC in Nagarkot and with hands-on field modules near spring catchments, allowing participants to connect theory with practice.

This event is supported by the United Kingdom International Development.

Objectives 

The specific objectives of this training are to:

• Provide an interdisciplinary understanding of spring systems in the HKH, equipping participants with the knowledge and skills for springshed management.
• Build practical skills in Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI)-responsive springshed management activities through sound concepts, analytical tools, and field experience, including hydrogeological assessments for identifying springs’ recharge areas.
• Share success stories and impacts of GESI-responsive springshed management under different conditions across Nepal and beyond.

Expected outcomes 

• Increased awareness about the importance of springs and springsheds in the HKH region
• Integration of GESI responsive springshed management concepts, approaches, and skills into the curricula of NWSSRICDC
• Strengthened skillsets to teach and apply citizen science-based spring mapping and springshed management, along with its impacts, through a transdisciplinary approach
• Increased and improved action research on springs and springsheds within the training centre’s programme and institutional structures

Background

Springs are a lifeline for thousands of rural and urban communities across the hills and mountains of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH). They provide critical water supplies, sustain river base flows, support biodiversity, and hold important cultural and spiritual significance. However, many springs that once flowed reliably are now drying up or showing declining discharge. This poses serious challenges—particularly for women, who are often responsible for water collection—and raises growing concerns over water quality due to contamination from both geogenic and anthropogenic sources.

In Nepal’s Himalayan region, springs and their sustainable management are gaining attention from policy, practice, and scientific communities. Yet, a key constraint to scaling up springshed management lies in the limited capacity of government agencies, researchers, and other stakeholders to plan and implement such initiatives in ways that ensure water security while delivering biodiversity conservation and climate change adaptation co-benefits.

Rationale

Addressing these capacity gaps is essential for mainstreaming GESI-responsive springshed management into national and sub-national policies and programmes. To date, most training initiatives have focused on civil society organisations in the HKH region. While valuable, there is now a pressing need to extend such training through training centres to government officials, researchers, and field practitioners.

This proposed training directly aligns with the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between ICIMOD and Nepal’s Ministry of Water Supply (MoWS). It supports the shared objective of strengthening institutional capacities and fostering collaboration for the sustainable management of water resources in mountain areas.