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Nepal: Climate change is real and happening now

Climate change in the Himalayas: Increased hazards and reduced water security

The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and the World Agroforesty Center , China (ICRAF-China) alert the global community to the impacts of climate change on the Himalayan water resources.

Global climate change is causing rapid melting of snow and glaciers in the Himalayan region. The Greater Himalaya has the largest concentration snow and Ice outside the two poles. Water from the Himalayan river systems flows into water basins with a total population of almost 1.3 billion. Warming in the Himalayan region has been much greater than global average. Both increasing and decreasing rain fall patters have been detected in the area. Weather patterns are becoming more unpredictable and extreme - dry seasons become dryer and wet seasons wetter. This phenomenon is causing concern over the long term reduction in total water supply, affecting lives and livelihoods of the Himalayan people, especially in agriculture practices and long term food security.

Ten large river systems originate from the high Himalayan mountains. The river basins of these systems provide water for 1.3 billion people in the basins, and around 200 million people in the upstream. The developed world produces green house gases in far bigger quantity than the Himalayan countries. Yet the people in the Himalayan region are paying the price of climate change in the form of extreme weather events such as flash floods, glacial lake outburst floods, high intensity rain fall and extreme drought.

Strengthening the resilience of the mountain population, without jeopardizing economic growth, means that substantial efforts will have to be made in adaptation. This means large investments, and also long term institutional cooperation.

Says Dr. Andreas Schild, Director General of ICIMOD, "The signs of global climate change are visible, but the in-depth knowledge and data from the Himalayan region is largely missing. There is an urgent need to increase scientific co-operation and regional collaboration to reduce this information gap."

For the policy orientation the following lines of action should be considered:

Increasing the capacity to manage risk and hazards affecting the most vulnerable people.

Increasing the regional and transboundary cooperation to improve early warning systems.

Promoting integrated river basin and water management schemes.

Strengthening policies which enable the storage of surplus water during the monsoon, and improving the availability of water during dry season (watershed development, afforestation, infrastructure for water storage and hydro electricity).

Promoting the exchange of scientific data thus reducing uncertainty, and clarifying the relation between economic growth, pollution and the receding cryosphere in the Himalayas.

Gokyo (4790 m)

The Hindu Kush-Himalayan region is the highest, most complex mountain region in the world.

It extends more than 3500km over eight countries, from Afghanistan in the north-west to Myanmar in the south-east. The region ranges from the plateau regions of Tibet and other mountain areas of China, to the Ganges Basin in India, and has the upland watersheds of the ten major Asian river systems.

Source: ICIMOD, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development , 19 Nov 2008

ICIMOD
The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) is an independent 'Mountain Learning and Knowledge Centre' serving the eight member countries of the Hindu-Kush-Himalayas - Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan - and the global mountain community. ICIMOD is a non-political intergovernmental organisation which, since 1983, has encouraged technical cooperation between governments in the region and whose primary objective is to help promote the development of environmentally sound mountain ecosystems and improve the living standards of the mountain population. www.icimod.org