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

11 Jun 2015 News
National partners from India trained on participatory natural resources management planning

From 11–18 May 2015, a workshop was held in the Indian part of the Kailash Sacred Landscape (KSL) to facilitate ...

15 Mar 2016 KSL
Thematic Tourism Routes Foster Regional Collaboration and Prosperity

During the 23rd edition of the South Asia’s Tourism and Travel Show (SATTE) 2016 by the United Nations World Tourism Organizations ...

25 May 2015 News
ICIMOD to lead SAARC CCI’s climate-related activities

Participants from ICIMOD attended the 62nd Executive Committee and 20th General Assembly of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Chamber ...

Emissions Study to Differentiate Characteristics of Paddy and Wheat Crop Residue Burning

Mehra collected wheat residue samples from the same districts, Kapilvastu and Rupendehi, where she had collected the paddy residue samples ...

8 Apr 2016 News
38 Open Access Papers on Glaciology in High Mountain Asia

A special thematic issue of the Annals of Glaciology has recently been published by Cambridge University Press (link). The thirty-eight ...

23 Nov 2015 News
Multi-stakeholder Consultation Meeting for AdaptHimal Initiative in Khagrachari, Bangladesh

  The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) organised a multi-stakeholder consultation meeting in collaboration with the Khagrachari Hill Development Council ...

31 Jul 2017 Himalica
Smarter Cardamom Farming Using SMS Advisories

Presently, more than 200 cardamom farmers subscribe to the service. Almost every day, they receive SMS advisories in the Nepali ...

17 Apr 2019 Cryosphere
HKH Science News: Conventional models for glacier melt calculation may not work in High Mountain Asia environments

The conventional approach of using temperature index models for modelling glacier ablation requires few input variables and relies on simple ...