Back to news
8 Apr 2016 | News

Strengthening Flood Risk Management in Bihar

1 min Read

70% Complete
Opening session

The Expert Consultation Workshop on Improving Flood Risk Management in Bihar was organised by the Water Resources Department (WRD) of Bihar 18-19 February in Patna with support from the World Bank. International experts on flood forecasting, senior officials from the water resources department, experts from the government, non-governmental organisations and academia with long standing experience in flood risk reduction participated. The workshop was conducted with four technical sessions: flood forecasting and early warning, river and sediment management, knowledge management and upcoming projects.

In the technical session on flood forecasting and early warning, Dr Mandira Singh Shrestha, Programme Coordinator of HYCOS initiative of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) shared the establishment of a regional flood outlook in the Himalayas with particular reference to the Koshi flood outlook. The regional flood outlook provides information on the flood discharge based on hydrologic and hydrodynamic models that have been established for the Ganges and Brahmaputra basins. The workshop discussed various technologies, tools and methods for better forecasting of floods.

Participants of the workshop

Floods are a serious problem in the Koshi River basin, and are often known as the ‘Sorrow of Bihar’. Every year, during the monsoon season, floods wreak havoc in the lower plain areas causing loss of lives and property damage. The Koshi River also carries an exceptionally high sediment load. The young and fragile geological conditions of the Himalayan region, along with high intensity rainfall during the monsoon, lead to a high erosion rate in the mountains and the subsequent high sediment load in the streamflow leads to high deposition in the downstream. In 2008 a breach in the Koshi embankment at Kusaha resulted in displacement of more than 70,000 people in Nepal and affected more than four million in India.

After the 2008 disaster the State Government of Bihar undertook a number of activities to address the increasing flood problems in the Koshi basin. As part of the Bihar Koshi Flood Recovery Project WRD is working on strengthening the flood management capacity of the Koshi basin. WRD has been working on enhancing the flood and early warning capacity in the state. The workshop aimed to improve flood risk management and to continue institutional strengthening of WRD.

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

11 Oct 2024 Press releases
PAKISTAN SECURES $10M IN CLIMATE FINANCE FOR NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS FOR WOMEN AND YOUTH IN THE INDUS

Women in the Hunza Valley planting sea buckthorn (Photo: Kanwal Waqar) Kathmandu, ...

16 Apr 2015 News
Studying rock and sediment samples of Koshi Basin

Samples of rock and sediment from the high and middle altitude mountains of the Koshi River Basin will ...

15 Nov 2017 News
Regional Hands-on Training on Community Based Flood Early Warning System (CBFEWS)

A five-day course in September 2017 was designed to enhance the capacity of participants to install and use community-based flood ...

15 May 2015 News
A preliminary assessment of potential lower Pisan landslide dam outburst flood

In the aftermath of the 7.8 Gorkha Earthquake that struck Nepal on 25 April 2015, ...

12 Oct 2015 News
Scientists assess wetland ecosystems services on top of the world

  In August 2015, a team consisting of experts from China’s Yunnan Institute of Environmental Sciences and ICIMOD carried out a ...

24 Jun 2015 News
Nepal deploys information platform for recovery and reconstruction

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA), Government of Nepal, in close collaboration with the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), and technical ...

Linking Pilot Interventions to Policy Formulation

Large cardamom is a high value cash crop and a leading source of livelihood for a large number of people ...

Opinion: The Hindu Kush Himalayas need institutions for better cooperation

Himalayan countries can look to the Arctic Council, Alpine Convention and the Carpathian Convention to build multilateral cooperation mechanisms, advises ...