Preparing for floods

Coping with climate change in Nepal

Chitwan and Nawalparasi are among the most severely flood-affected districts in Nepal. Loss of lives and livelihoods are increasing annually along the Rapti and Narayani rivers as climatic conditions change.
Communities in Chitwan face the regular threat of destructive climatic events. In August 2003 there was a destructive flood in Jugedi, Bharlang and Isti which destroyed homes, cultivated land and human life. Farm land was also lost and three people were killed in a similar flood in August 1993. Soil erosion, lack of plantation, weak forest management and lack of awareness about environment management in the community are some of the major factors to environmental problems in the area. The increase in population and construction of nearby highway is also putting pressure on local natural resources.
Practical Action’s project works with 183 households and a population of 1,098. Agriculture is the mainstay of these communities. The average landholding per household is 3,424 sq m (just under an acre). The secondary source for livelihoods is livestock raising, forest products, trade, labourer (farm and off-farm), carpentry and masonry. The food production from the land meets the needs for only 3 - 4 months of the year. Unemployment and under-employment is also widespread.

Flooding preparedness

This project aims to reduce the impacts flooding has on communities living along the banks of Rapti and Narayani rivers in Chitwan. Communities are forced to live here due to land shortages often caused by annual destructive floods.
The livelihoods of fishermen and boatmen rely solely on the resources of the river due to land shortage. Although these floods are an annual event, their severity and intensity seems to be increasing. This results in more damage to property, farm land and loss of assets such as farm machinery and livestock as well as human life. As the floods cannot be predicted, villagers have to be alert to the risks both day and night. Warnings are typically relayed by word of mouth and by the time the information reaches the last/furthest household in a settlement, it is often already too late.
The scheme includes installing strengthening communities’ capacity to manage them through capacity building and awareness raising. This in turn will strengthen coping strategies.
The work includes:

• construction of dykes to channel water away from vulnerable communities
• protective structures
• an early warning system (watch tower)
• an additional bridge
• two emergency shelters
• rain/flood gauges

These will give increased security to vulnerable communities while contributing to the protection of marginal farm land and dwellings. Emergency materials, including life jackets and life boats, will also be provided to the communities.
This project is managed by Practical Action in partnership with local communities, and has been supported by the European Union, through its first DIPECHO programme for South Asia since 2002. It combines traditional Early Warning System practices with new technologies and adopts broader community based approach for disaster management, and will benefit 9,442 community members directly and 5,257 others indirectly. In 2006 Practical Action Nepal and European Commission Humanitarian Aid department (ECHO) established yet another partnership to strengthen the capacity of the communities to manage EWS in Chitwan and Nawalparasi districts.

Future work

This initiative will continue with an expansion of this pilot programme to three further sites in each district. Working with its local partners, SAHAMATI and Campaign Service Centre (CSC), Practical Action Nepal is initiating a community based risk reduction programme based around improved EWS, community managed river bank protection measures and provision of improved flood risk reduction infrastructure in the form of shelters, bridges and boats. Further, this is combined with a general campaign to increase public awareness.
http://practicalaction.org/disaster-reduction/climatechange_nepalfloods