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

4 Jul 2016 News
P3DM in Nepal

The workshop ‘Participatory 3 Dimensional Model (P3DM) building’ was held 12-18 June 2016 at Dhungetar, Charghare VDC, Nuwakot in Nepal. ...

4 Feb 2016 Himalica
Myanmar Journalists Learn Climate Change Communication

A five-day training for 20 Myanmar journalists on reporting climate change adaptation was organised by the International Centre for Integrated ...

Participation in sixth Regional Conservation Forum meeting in Bangkok

The Sixth Regional Conservation Forum (RCF ), organised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Asia Office, the Ministry of Natural Resources ...

30 Jul 2018 HUC
HUC Academy 2018: Building Mountain Research Capacity

The Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region, a global asset for food, energy and water resources, is ...

31 Jan 2016 News
HKH Permafrost Distribution Maps Assessment

[caption id="attachment_8734" align="alignnone" width="211"] The cover image of the ‘Manual for Mapping Rock ...