Back to news
15 Jun 2016 | News

Payment for Ecosystem Services for Drinking Water Schemes in Dhankuta, Koshi Hills, is Becoming a Reality

1 min Read

70% Complete

After a yearlong effort through an action research by ICIMOD’s Koshi Basin Programme (KBP) and its partner Green Governance of Nepal (GGN) to identify the role of upstream watershed areas in maintaining the quantity and quality of water flow downstream, a ‘letter of intent’ was signed recently in Dhankuta Municipality of eastern Nepal.

The letter is a significant agreement that gives high value recognition to work towards strengthening the upstream-downstream linkage through research on water systems and siltation patterns in upstream watershed areas, consultations with communities about water demand and water economic value, negotiating payment amount and facilitate an institutional arrangement of payment of freshwater ecosystem services (also known as PES).

The signing of the letter of intent was considered a significant step, which the local communities both from the upstream watershed villagers Nibuwa and Tankhuwa and downstream Dhankuta town residents as well as the government agencies had been highly anticipating.

The letter was presented during a one-day stakeholders’ workshop on 8 June 2016 in Dhankuta by the municipal authority in presence of over 50 including 7 female representatives from various government line agencies and community leaders from the watershed community.

During the event, the municipal authority expressed its commitment to pay for the upstream ecosystem water services to the upstream watershed communities while different line agencies committed to streamline their conservation and development activities in the upstream watershed.

Local Development Officer Ganesh Prashad Dahal highlighted the need of PES and investment in conserving upstream ecosystem. He hoped that the local level implementation of PES in Dhankuta would be a source of knowledge and learning for national level PES implementation.

Tirtha Prashad Dhital, chief executive officer of Dhankuta municipality acknowledged the research support from ICIMOD and committed to utilize the research findings to manage local water supply in the municipality.

The participants shared that they have identified priority activities for implementation, in particular to conservation of watershed, water source protection and diversifying livelihoods options in affected areas.

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

12 Oct 2015 HKPL
Pakistani students learn about permafrost and glacier monitoring

A two day workshop on permafrost and glaciers was held 15-16 September at Karakoram International University (KIU) in ...

19 May 2015 News
International Conference on Ecotourism in Protected Areas opens in Myanmar

The International Conference on Ecotourism in Protected Areas in Myanmar opened today afternoon at the Myanmar International Convention Centre (II), ...

2 Apr 2015 News
Maximizing Rural Value Chains in Myanmar

In March, ICIMOD and the Myanmar Institute for Integrated Development (MIID) conducted a ...

19 Jun 2018 Cryosphere
Institutional Recognition for Promoting Women in Glaciology Research in the HKH

Since its inception in 2011, the Cryosphere Initiative at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) has made a ...

Community-based flood early warning: First national-level hands-on training in Pakistan

In collaboration with the Pakistan Meteorological Department, WWF-Pakistan, and Burraq Integrated ...

9 Dec 2016 News
Training to Measure Glaciers in Afghanistan, Bhutan, and Nepal

A four-day theoretical training on glacier mass balance monitoring was conducted from 25–28 October 2016 at the International Centre for ...

25 May 2015 News
Bhutanese farmers learn livestock and vegetable value chain in Nepal

The Rural Livelihoods and Climate Change Adaptation (Himalica) programme has been implementing a pilot project in Barshong Geog ...