Climate Risk Management in Nepal

Background

Regional Context

The impacts of rising temperatures, variable precipitation, and increased occurrence of extreme weather events are already being felt in the South Asia region. The Himalayas, situated in the region comprise the world’s highest mountains. Their glaciers are the source of some of the world’s greatest rivers, fed by the South Asian monsoon. These rivers supply the world’s most densely populated flood plains.

Within the region, Nepal is unique and extremely vulnerable to impacts of climate change. Nepal’s geographic location and impacts of climate variability and climate change on its natural resources transcend political boundaries. Impacts of climate change on glaciers, mountain ecosystems, monsoon behaviour, and flood and drought frequency and intensity are already impacting the livelihoods of millions of people.

As Nepal contributes to many of the region’s major river systems, it provides strategic climate change adaptation and disaster risk management opportunities. Implementation and evaluation of location specific adaptation and disaster risk management practices in major eco-regions of the country will benefit the replication of good practices in similar locations of other countries in the region.

National Context

Women's Group in Arghakanchi district Nepal is one of the global “hot spots” countries for natural disasters. The country is prone to a variety of recurring natural disasters such as floods, drought, land slides, hailstorms, snow avalanches, Glacial Lake Outbursts (GLOF), hot and cold waves and pest and disease epidemics. The poor and marginalised groups of people residing in the rural areas are usually hit hardest by these natural calamities. Agriculture which is Nepal’s main economic sector, employing 80 percent of the population is highly exposed to natural disasters. Although the Government of Nepal has constantly responded to climate risk impacts, a shift from reactive emergency response to proactive disaster risk management initiative is crucially needed to save agricultural livelihoods. This shift is currently under way and led by the Ministry of Home Affairs, it requests strong cross-sectoral involvement and responsibilities from line agencies including the Department of Agriculture.

Global climate change constitutes an additional threat to the already deprived rural population heavily engaged in agriculture. Observed annual temperature shows an increasing trend over the last few decades and the Global Circulation Models (GCM) project an increase in temperature from 1.4 °C to 5.8 °C with doubling of CO². Increasing trends of extreme climate events and natural disasters due to climate change could undermine future food security.