This site uses cookies, as explained in our terms of use. If you consent, please close this message and continue to use this site.
1 min Read
In 2018, the Department of Soil Conservation and Watershed Management (DSCWM) under Nepal’s Ministry of Forests and Environment listed Shardu Khola watershed in east Nepal as one of the country’s seven prominent urban watersheds. This comes as a result of four years of engagement between the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), municipalities, and the central government. The DSCWM has allocated NPR 10 million (USD 917,000) to implement low-cost, innovative watershed management solutions that were identified through research by ICIMOD and others. The DSCWM and municipal government acknowledged ICIMOD’s role in identifying the five primary investment areas in urban catchment management: a) sediment management structures; b) green technology development and implementation; c) Spring recharge and water source protection and catchment restoration; and d) study of water sources and availability.
In 2014, ICIMOD’s Himalayan Climate Change Adaptation Program (HICAP) began investigating incentive schemes and watershed management options to provide drinking water to upstream communities in the Shardu Khola watershed. Following findings that such schemes were feasible and best carried out by municipal governments, ICIMOD deepened its engagement with municipal governments and the DSCWM in 2016–17. ICIMOD’s Koshi Basin Program (KBP) and government partners established a local multi-stakeholder platform to conserve the upstream area, as the primary source of water to Dharan, and devolved responsibilities to the municipality to incentivize upstream communities to better manage the watershed.
Share
Stay up to date on what’s happening around the HKH with our most recent publications and find out how you can help by subscribing to our mailing list.
Related content
A multidisciplinary team was organised in the Mu Lar-Nam Ru watershed area of Putao district in Kachin, Myanmar late February ...
Through PhotoHKH, ICIMOD hoped to draw attention to change happening in the mountain areas of the Hindu Kush Himalaya and ...
According to Tshering Tashi, Senior Hydromet Officer at Bhutan’s National Center of Hydrology and Meteorology (NCHM), Bhutan has very little ...
Even as communities reel from the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic, the threat of floods is omnipresent. Koshi River drains ...
ICIMOD, together with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and theUnited Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), celebrated the International Biodiversity Day in Kabul on ...
ICIMOD has spent the past three weeks collaborating with an international team of scientists to evaluate the hazards that contributed ...
Myanmar has the largest remaining forest area in Southeast Asia, with 44% of its land classified as forest, but it ...