Back to news
2 Jan 2015 | News

Promoting regional efforts to reduce flood vulnerabilities

1 min Read

70% Complete

ICIMOD, in collaboration with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), organized the eighth Regional Steering Committee (RSC) meeting for the HKH-HYCOS project. This final SRC meeting of the current phase was held from 22 to 24 September 2014 at the ICIMOD headquarters in Kathmandu. Participants from Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan as well as the WMO, Government of Finland, Finnish Meteorological Institute, ICIMOD, and international experts reviewed the project progress and endorsed a project proposal for the next phase, focusing on delivering lifesaving flood warning messages to vulnerable communities.

The HKH-HYCOS project is working to establish a regional flood information system in the HKH region in close collaboration with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the six regional partner countries namely, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. More specifically, the project seeks to reduce flood vulnerability in the Indus and Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna river basins by minimizing loss of lives and livelihoods. To that end, it works to strengthen regional cooperation for sharing flood data and information among the member countries. The project is supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Finland

The project has upgraded 37 hydromet stations in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan. These stations can now automatically observe rainfall and water level measurements. The project has established web-based regional and national flood information systems for sharing real-time data and information for reducing risks. The project is also piloting a regional flood outlook model using Mike 11 hydrological software. Apart from real-time hydromet data from the 37 stations upgraded by the project, freely available rainfall forecast data is being inputted into the flood outlook model to add value and improve accuracy of the model. In order to sustain the initiative, the project has focused heavily on enhancing partner organizations’ technical capacity in flood forecasting and communication, and sought public private partnerships, especially with telecom operators, for disaster risk reduction.
In view of the imminent funding shortage between the end of the current phase and the next phase, RSC members have committed to supporting some of the project activities through their national budget.

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 contents

Continue exploring this topic

22 Mar 2015 News
The Himalayan waters: complex challenges and regional solutions

It is difficult to think of a resource more essential to the wellbeing of people and their economies than water, ...

30 Jul 2015 Atmosphere Initiative
Emission study to close data gaps

Emission is a major determinant of air quality, and improving quantification and characterization of emission sources in the Hindu Kush ...

11 Feb 2019 Water
2nd Regional Upper Indus Basin Network (UIB-N) Workshop

Glaciers in the upper reaches of the Indus River basin are an important source of freshwater. However, as climate change ...

14 Dec 2015 News
Expanding Efforts to Revive Koshi’s Drying Springs and Ponds

  Local community leaders from village development committees (VDCs) gathered  2 Decem-ber 2015 in Bhakunde Besi, Kavre for a one day ...

10 Aug 2017 News
Tripartite Consultation on Gilgit Baltistan Disaster Management Plan

Zaheer Uddin Babar, Deputy Director of GB-DMA, said that the existing plan was developed in 2008 with the help of ...

18 Aug 2020 News
Larger glaciers in the Hindu Kush are behaving like glaciers in the Karakorum

Findings from a recent study show that the larger glaciers in the Hindu Kush region of ...

29 Apr 2016 News
Pakistan Celebrates World Meteorological Day (WMO)

The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), in collaboration with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), organized World Meteorological Day (WMD) ...

10 Jun 2016 KSL
Mapping Kailash Kora for Conservation and Promotion of Responsible Heritage Tourism

Researchers from Sichuan University, China visited the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Nepal 18-22 April 2016 to ...