| Overview : Among all physiographic regions of Nepal, the mountain regions are the most vulnerable, because warming trends are growing and the impacts are magnified by the extreme changes due to variation in altitude. The Himalayan catchments of Nepal, including watersheds in mountain regions are particularly prone to floods and associated landslides, because the melting snow coincides with the summer monsoon season and any intensification of the monsoon and/or increase in melting, is likely to contribute to flood disasters. Around 85% of rainfall occurs during the four monsoon months of June to September. Reports from Nepal’s Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) show that over the course of the past 10 years, more than 4,000 people have died from climate-induced disasters and have resulted in accumulated economic losses of US$5.34 billion (MoHA, 2010). At the other extreme, water scarcity and droughts also pose a threat to livelihood systems. The temporal variability of rainfall and runoff is hence very high, and the problem of excess water during the monsoon and water scarcity during the dry season affects all aspects of life in the country.
A long term solution to this climate change problem is to rehabilitate and maintain functional integrity of watersheds that have critical functions of water storage and release, infiltration, drainage control, and soil moisture retention. Using watersheds as organizing units for planning and implementation of natural resources management and resilient livelihood development is an approach to effectively tackle an immediate and long term climate risk reduction, in relation to floods and droughts. Taking watershed management concerns into serious consideration UNDP plans to support the Government of Nepal by channelizing global fund (Least Development Country Fund) from Global Environment Facility (GEF) through the project “Developing climate resilient livelihoods in the vulnerable watershed in Nepal”. |
