Nuwakot, Nepal 

The team conducted informal and key-informant interviews, as well as focus group discussions with stakeholders, in Khadga Bhanjyan, Charghare, Ratmate, Madanpur, Suryamati, Belkot, Kalyanpur, Chaughada, and Bidur in Nuwakot district, Nepal, to assess biophysical and socioeconomic drivers of vulnerability to climate change, such as poverty, unemployment, outmigration, gender inequality, inaccessibility, remoteness, and inequitable development. The team identified major issues such as the labour migration of Nepali youth to Gulf countries and elsewhere; rain-induced landslides; river bank erosion and seasonal floods; water scarcity; and the poor management of drinking water and irrigation systems. Although initiatives have been taken by the government to address some of these issues, they have been largely inadequate. Subsistence farming is the norm on about 40% of the rainfed agricultural land in Nuwakot. The rising inter-annual variability in seasonal rainfall has severely reduced agricultural productivity, making farming households that are dependent on rainfed agriculture even more vulnerable.  Elsewhere, a shift to cash crops, such as off-season vegetables and potatoes, has taken place due to increased access to markets.

Chitwan, Nepal

Practical Action-Nepal, a local partner of the HI-AWARE Initiative, helped facilitate the field visit of the research team to Chitwan district in Nepal. The team met with the Chitwan District Development Committee to learn about the critical and emerging water-related issues facing Chitwan district. The team identified potential study sites, including Mangalpur, Gunjanagar, Meghauli, and Ayodhyapuri. The team identified three critical issues for further in-depth research: flood risks, human-wildlife conflict, and unemployment. The people the team met with are hopeful that the government and development partners will help build infrastructure to control floods and river bank erosion during the monsoon. The lack of incentives to engage in modern agriculture and adopt new livelihood options means that many are unemployed and, despite the risks involved, migrating abroad for work.

West Champaran, Bihar, India

In Rakhahi, Badki Rakhahi, Mangalpur, Bikhna Thori, and Buddha Nagar villages in West Champaran, Bihar, the team learnt that transboundary floods, river encroachment due to the changing of the river course, and river bank erosion are major issues that the people have been grappling with for years. Housing, sanitation, transportation, and health issues in the aftermath of flood disasters are other concerns for those affected. To protect people from floods, the Bihar government has invested heavily in building embankments. In 1954, when the Bihar Flood Policy was first introduced, Bihar had approximately 160 km of embankments and an estimated 2.5 million hectares of land were flood-prone. Since then, 3,465 km of embankments has been constructed and is administered by the Water Resources Department. The Koshi and Gandaki are two rivers on which the construction of embankments has been controversial. The embankments impound water in those fields that are on the river’s side and do not allow the free flow of water, which previously was able to spread thinly. When the precipitation is high upstream in Nepal, the water breaches the embankment leading to floods. Floods keep people in a spiral of poverty and increase migration to other states, such as Punjab, Haryana, and Kerala.