Water for Life

The monsoon this year arrived on time, and brought life-giving rain — irrigating paddy terraces, recharging groundwater, reviving springs, and increasing electricity generation.

But Nepal has to deal with either too much water or too little. On a clear April day before the monsoon, the hills of Sindhuli district were parched, and there were wildfires burning out of control. There had been no rain for the past six months.

And that has been the perennial crisis for Nepal’s farmers: that 85% of the rainfall occurs during just four months of the monsoon with little rain for the other eight months. 

The water crisis is related to the powerful changes sweeping the mid-hill region of Nepal. With better roads, higher incomes and more exposure, many residents now aspire to have the kind of water supply seen in urban homes. They want hot or cold water at the turn of a tap, showers and flush tank toilets. 

To meet this rising demand, many local and provincial governments are investing in large water supply projects often by lifting water from rivers hundreds of metres down the mountain. But these new systems may not be sustainable in the long run.

Many villages in Sindhuli are switching from local springs to piped systems, and even in rural homes, overhead tanks are becoming common.

But this new convenience comes with big challenges. Lifting water from rivers far below requires long pipes, electric pumps, and constant maintenance. These systems are costly, and the streams themselves often shrink to a trickle in the dry months. Big water-lifting schemes look impressive, but there is doubt if they can meet growing water demand.

A much more sustainable solution would be what some communities are doing: restoring old ponds or build new recharge systems. But those villages are exceptions, in most places traditional ponds and wallows are being filled up to be turned into sports fields, or make way for buildings.

Where there are new ponds, they are sometimes in the wrong places or without proper design. Roads and drains are not engineered properly and have increased landslides and erosion. Water management in hilly areas is not just about building things, it is about building in the right way, in the right place.

Traditional water systems were based on nature. They were not perfect, but they used the land wisely. Ponds used to hold rainwater and slowly refill springs which supported families, farms, and forests. 

Not everything worked well in the past, but we can learn from traditional water management practices. Across Nepal, some rural municipalities have launched campaigns to store monsoon runoff — either in tanks, ponds or by recharging the aquifers.

But not all efforts have been successful. Some ponds are built without any hydrological study. Some are rushed to meet deadlines rather than real needs. 

Now, the Muhan initiative hopes to revive springs to make households more resilient and help farmings. With the financial support of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, research is being done to understand how springs work and how they are affected by changes in rainfall, land use, and development. 

Instead of just building pipes and tanks, the project maps the entire springshed so we can understand the root cause of water shortage. In Sindhuli, the problem is not the amount of rain, but the loss of natural systems that store it and the social systems that manage water. 

Nepal’s towns and villages now face a major challenge: how to manage water all year round as demand rises with people’s living standards. Depending only on river-lift systems is not a sustainable solution. 

We need a mix of approaches that help store water from the rainy season to make it available for the rest of the year, whether by directly harvesting rainwater, restoring ponds, managing springsheds, or smart management of demand.

Rural Nepal is also seeing dramatic depopulation. Much of the outmigration can be stemmed if there is easier water supply for agriculture and household use. Across the mid hills, villages are emptying because springs are going dry. Government policy needs to catch up with the reality on the ground, and support solutions that work for people and nature. Every water supply plan should include recharge structures. Every road or building project should consider water flow and erosion. Local governments need more than budgets: they need training, tools, and data.

Ngamindra Dahal is with the Nepal Water Conservation Foundation, Kathmandu. Hemant Ojha collaborated in this piece and is associated with the Australian National University.