Back to news
10 Jul 2018 | CBFEWS

Local Communities Take Ownership of Flood Early Warning System

At the onset of the 2018 monsoon, a community in Shrikhandi Bhittamore in Bihar, India, raised funds to repair a community-based flood early warning system (CBFEWS) that had been damaged along the Ratu River near the Nepal–India border. The funds were raised by Yuganter, a local NGO, and community representatives led by the Mukhiya of Shrikhandi, Purnima Mishra. The system was repaired by International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and Sustainable Eco Engineering (SEE), in partnership with Yuganter.

0 mins Read

70% Complete
A team from SEE restoring the system in Shrikhandi Bhittamore

ICIMOD, partners, and local governments have come together to save lives from flash flooding by installing eleven such community-based flood early warning systems (CBFEWS) in nine tributaries of the Bramhaputra, Indus, and Koshi rivers in Afghanistan, India, Nepal, and Pakistan.

A CBFEWS provides at least four hours of lead time for vulnerable communities to respond to approaching floods. The systems, which rely on technology and human operators, have saved lives and property and established goodwill between upstream and downstream communities otherwise unknown to each other. During the 2017 monsoon floods, CBFEWS helped save 17 children on along the Koshi River, in Nepal and India.


A Yuganter representative handing over the amount to SEE-ICIMOD representatives as Purnima Mishra observes

Stay current

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.

Sign Up

Related content

Continue exploring this topic

25 Mar 2015 News
Local Stakeholders in the Koshi basin receive Training on WUMP Facilitation

A four-day training on Water Use Master Plans (WUMPs) facilitation was jointly organized by HELVETAS ...

11 Aug 2015 News
Experts stress need for collaboration to protect the natural heritage of earthquake-affected areas of Nepal

Over 50 experts and conservation practitioners from the region stressed the need for greater collaboration to overcome the socio-ecological impacts ...

14 Aug 2017 News
21 Stakeholders Trained in the Essentials of Climate Change in Chitwan

Other than being catalogued and bound into thick journals to gather dust, what is the use of high-level climate change ...

24 Sep 2015 Forests
Improved methods to measure forest above-ground biomass in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region through satellites

The study of forest above-ground biomass (AGB) for estimating the carbon stock in each tree is important, as it is ...

16 Nov 2015 HKPL
ICIMOD Supports International Conference on Mountain and Climate Change

The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) through its Cryosphere Initiative co-organised the International Conference on Mountain and Climate ...

30 Nov 2018 Cryosphere
Knowledge sharing on the 3D motion of glaciers in China’s Central Tien Shan region

Li’s work focused on the derivation of high-resolution 3D glacier motion to understand the interaction between a glacial lake and ...

Bridging Knowledge Gaps: the Effects of Air Pollution on Human Health

Parth Sarathi Mahapatra, a research analyst with the Atmosphere Initiative at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), says ...