Back to news
14 Jun 2016 | Water and air

Spring Management in Darchula

1 min Read

70% Complete

At daybreak, the villagers, mostly women and children, come out carrying containers of different shapes and sizes. They walk to mul paniyar, or the local spring, and wait for hours to collect water. This is a familiar sight in Sundamunda village, ward 7 of Dallekh VDC in Darchula district. A total of 34 households are directly dependent on this source. In lean season (roughly February to May), more households come to collect water here. Locals have to spend many hours each day walking to and from the spring.

Being closer to spring does not make things easier. Kalawati Thagunna lives very close to the spring. Every day she or one of her family members has to make 11 trips to the spring. But the water they get is not enough to meet their household needs.

According to locals, water flow in the spring has decreased over the past years. Given the shortage of water, they have to prioritize their most urgent need – drinking – and use what remains for household work and livestock.

 

Apart from making everyday life difficult, the lack of water has affected health and sanitation. Although the VDC has been declared an open-defecation free (ODF) site, people have stopped using toilets.

Despite the huge importance of the spring, there is no system or institutional setup to protect and maintain the water source. The community does not have a backup plan or coping strategies. When asked what they will do when the spring dries up, most of the locals said they would travel to another spring further up in the village.

ICIMOD’s initial observation indicates that there is a clear need to improve management of the spring and increase its water discharge. The District Water Supply Department has plans to extend pipelines to all households. However, reviving or increasing discharge simultaneously will be of utmost importance given the growing scarcity of water. Similarly, there is a need to create an institutional mechanism for the maintenance of the spring. Certain rules of hygiene should also be set, because most people wash their clothes and bathe in the spring.

This calls for a community-centric approach to spring management and restoration. The Kailash Sacred Landscape Conservation and Development Initiative (KSLCDI) of ICIMOD facilitates such an approach by building the communities’ capacity to manage springs.

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

22 Mar 2017 HKPL
Xi’an delegation visits ICIMOD and other relevant departments in Nepal

An official delegation from Shaanxi Province, Xian, China visited ICIMOD from 19 - 23 February 2017, a visit organized by ...

8 Feb 2016 News
HIMAP: A Monitoring and Assessment Programme to Sustain the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region as a Global Asset

From 26-28 January 2016, the first writers’ workshop for the coordinating lead authors of the Hindu Kush Himalayan Monitoring and ...

8 Mar 2017 Blog
Kalchebesi’s Real Entrepreneurs: Women Spearheading Adaptation to Climate Change

Many experts and researches have claimed that women suffer the impacts of climate change more than men do. This is ...

10 Jan 2017 News
Training for the Development of Flood Outlook in Bhutanese River Basins

A week-long training on flood outlook was organized by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Thimphu, Bhutan, ...

8 Dec 2015 KSL
ICIMOD Partners Day in China

To continue strengthening partnerships with Chinese organisations, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Chinese Committee on ICIMOD (CNICIMOD) ...

12 Feb 2015 News
ICIMOD participates in the SAARC Working Group on Monsoon Meeting

At the second SWGM meeting, which was jointly organized by SAARC Meteorological Research Centre (SMRC) and the India ...

12 Oct 2015 News
Community led Micro planning training in the HKH

  A three-day regional Training of Trainers (ToT) on Community-led Micro-planning organised by the Rural Livelihoods and Climate Change Adaptation in ...

24 Feb 2016 News
Rewarding Conserving Dhankuta Upstream Communities

The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and Dhankuta municipality have combined to manage upstream water sources and possible ...