SUMMARY

Cultural beliefs, myths, and faith are integral components of local knowledge and practices, playing an important role in strengthening community responses to disaster risk reduction through various pathways. Firstly, these aspects influence people’s understanding of the risks associated with disasters (e.g., risk perception) and their responses to such events. Gobargada Village in the Koshi region serves as a living example of how cultural beliefs, myths, and faith deeply influence community life. These traditions not only shape the identity of the residents but also act as strong pillars during the times of crisis. They are often intertwined with natural elements, historical events, local landscapes, and ecosystems, reflecting a deep understanding of the environment and its challenges. This policy brief suggests recognizing and incorporating cultural beliefs, myths, and faith into disaster plans, using Gobargada as a case study. It proposes that local governments value and promote these cultural elements into broader resilience strategies

SUMMARY Nepal’s diverse physiography, comprising the Himalayan north, hilly middle region, and Terai plains in the south, shapes distinct land use practices. Traditional wisdom in land use, driven by an understanding of the environment and disaster vulnerability, is being disrupted by rapid changes, notably driven by road construction. Linear settlements along floodplains, accelerated by road construction and hydropower projects, raise concerns about disaster risk. Challenges stem from the indiscriminate use of land, reflecting poor planning and the absence of a comprehensive land-use policy considering disaster risk. This is driven by multiple factors such as high out-migration for labor market abroad, rural to urban migration and change in livelihoods from agriculture to service-based. Policy recommendations include strategic land use planning, zoning regulations, and geographical vulnerability assessments to mitigate risks. There is need of incentives for safe settlement practices, nature-based solutions, and a strengthened legal framework to promote sustainable land use practices in Nepal.

SUMMARY

Salinity intrusion is a significant issue in coastal areas of Bangladesh, particularly during the dry season, and it poses various challenges for agriculture, drinking water, and overall livelihoods. The local communities are practicing different adaptation strategies based on the learning from the ground context. These local adaptation practices such as long-distance piped irrigation technique, water reservoir development, raised bed farming system and rainwater harvesting technology are very prominent in mitigating the adverse effects of salinity in coastal Bangladesh. Efforts to manage and mitigate soil salinity are crucial for sustaining agricultural productivity in coastal regions of Bangladesh, where millions of people depend on agriculture for their livelihoods and food supply.

SUMMARY

Indigenous knowledge and weather forecasting have played a crucial role in helping coastal communities in Bangladesh predict and prepare for extreme weather events. This knowledge, passed down through generations, has proven to be a valuable weapon against the devastating impact of cyclones, floods, and other weather-related disasters in this vulnerable region. Combining this wisdom with modern meteorological science can enhance the region’s resilience in the face of climate change and its associated challenges.

SUMMARY

Landslides and soil erosion represent two common phenomena in mountainous regions, induced by heavy rainfall, floods, and human activities along the slopes. The practice of using vegetation to enhance slope stability is established in mountainous areas in Nepal and is deeply ingrained in traditional farming management, such as hedgerows, slope site plantation and agroforestry. Such techniques are gradually diminishing within the newer generations due to shifts in livelihood practices and a growing emphasis on engineering-based solutions. We advocate the integration of these practices into local development programs, which predominantly prioritize costly measures like embankments, gabion walls, and roadside canals. This shift not only offsets cost but also provides multiple benefits, including soil protection, the increase of green spaces, and biodiversity. There is a need for guidelines to promote traditional knowledge of planting vegetation on verges and slopes for slope stabilization.

SUMMARY

Floodplain areas in Nepal have been prime locations for agriculture-related activities, as these areas can be easily irrigated and consist of nutrient-rich soil. However, with the expansion of agricultural infrastructure in other areas (e.g., irrigation systems, chemical fertilizers, high-yielding seeds), many of these floodplains are now abandoned due to the risks of potential flood hazards. The Government of Nepal should focus on harnessing economic opportunities in these areas. This requires tailored-made programs focusing on agriculture production, animal husbandry, fisheries, and nature-based tourism.

SUMMARY

Agriculture is vital for livelihoods in Nepal, India and Bangladesh. Local communities in these countries have developed unique farming systems well-adapted to their environments. This includes the use of local crop varieties with unique traits like flood, drought and disease resistance. Thus, community resilience to disasters was in place for centuries. However, such practices are at risk due to the promotion of foreign and/or hybrid seeds. This policy brief draws case studies from Nepal, India and Bangladesh, and highlights the value of local crop varieties in strengthening community resilience to disasters.

Abstract

Disaster risk reduction strategies are often accompanied by conventional adaptation approaches, involving high costs and limited flexibility. Conversely, ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) has been advocated as a sustainable approach because it is cost-effective, efficient and provides co-benefits (e.g., ecosystem services). However, there is limited awareness and understanding among both disaster risk reduction professionals and ecologists about the linkages of ecosystem restoration to disaster risk reduction. Here, we assessed people's perceptions towards the availability of ecosystem services in the highly degraded and fragile landscape to floods and soil erosion in Central Nepal. We then assessed vulnerabilities at household level in both pre- and post-restoration periods, using indicators such as distance to the river, land cover composition (ratio of forest to non-forest), occupation, availability of ecosystem services, and effectiveness of the restoration projects in the vicinity. Our results show that vulnerability as a function of adaptive capacity and sensitivity decreased even though there were no significant improvements in some of the provisions of ecosystem services we assessed. Since our results showed restoration projects were not integrated following the principles of EbA criteria, careful integration during project design and implementation would strengthen community resilience in future. Our work provides new insight into the restoration response to disasters and provides a basis for future research and policy development.

SUMMARY

The Koshi River in Nepal is prone to recurrent flooding. Local communities have been using their indigenous resources and knowledge to manage disasters through local institutions. However, government-led initiatives have largely ignored these institutions, resulting in missed opportunities to utilize proven and widely accepted practices at the local level to address the problem.

SUMMARY

Designing local development plans that consider site specific hazard risks is crucial. However, this consideration is often overlooked, even in areas with high hazard risks, resulting in significant damage to public resources. This policy brief examines the challenges that arise from ignoring local conditions by using Gobargada, a flood-prone village in Eastern Nepal, as a case study. In this village, local people construct houses using easily disassembled, cost-effective, and easily repairable local resources, whereas the government school consists of permanent concrete buildings that were destroyed due to the shift of the river channel, a regular occurrence in the region. Such inconsistencies in the government’s programs reflect a complete disregard for local circumstances. In conclusion, local governments must prioritize local knowledge in disaster risk reduction to create more sustainable and resilient communities.

The devastating 2015 earthquakes in Nepal highlighted the need for effective disaster risk reduction (DRR) in mountains, which are inherently subject to hazards and increasingly vulnerable to extreme events. As multiple UN policy frameworks stress, DRR is crucial to mitigate the mounting environmental and socioeconomic costs of disasters globally. However, specialized DRR guidelines are needed for biodiverse, multi-hazard regions like mountains. Ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction (Eco-DRR) emphasizes ecosystem conservation, restoration, and sustainable management as key elements for DRR. We propose that integrating the emerging field of Eco-DRR with community-based DRR (CB-DRR) will help address the increasing vulnerabilities of mountain people and ecosystems. Drawing on a global mountain synthesis, we present paradoxes that create challenges for DRR in mountains and examine these paradoxes through examples from the 2015 Nepal earthquakes.

The embeddedness of local and indigenous communities in their environments has led them to develop time-tested knowledge and practices to prepare for, mitigate, respond to, and recover from the impacts of natural hazards. Collectively, these are referred to as local and indigenous knowledge (LIK) and have gained a niche in disaster risk reduction (DRR) scholarship. We conducted a systematic literature review, identifying 325 articles that were qualitatively coded to identify what practices constitute LIK, patterns in how it has been studied, and how current understanding of LIK fits to the Sendai Framework. We found a plethora of strategies that communities mobilise, from hazard forecasts to livelihood-based adaptation, with the study of these concentrated in middle- and high-income countries. Efforts to integrate knowledge (LIK and scientific) and power spheres (top-down and bottom-up) are increasingly prominent themes in disaster scholarship. There is a recognition of LIK in the Sendai Framework priority areas, although still embryonic, which we link to the existing body of knowledge in literature. Our synthesis pieces together a holistic understanding of LIK to offer a more concrete appreciation of what LIK is and how it can be further relevant for DRR efforts.

‘Knowledge-building’ has long been regarded as a keystone strategy in strengthening communities' capacities, resilience, and adaptation strategies against hazards and disasters. From technoscientific discourses, the approach to knowledge-building gradually shifted towards a more integrative stance, this time involving place-based knowledges (i.e., local, indigenous, traditional) in international Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) frameworks. On the one hand, scholars indicate that DRR policies cemented an equitable and inclusive approach to knowledge-building. On the other, several observers noted that the lack of concrete examples of knowledge integration may indicate that the stipulations of global policies were but empty rhetoric. Taking into account these divergent views, I employed a transversal rhetorical analysis to understand how key global texts for disaster management produced over four decades of policymaking epicycles regard, categorise, and deploy ‘knowledge’. By centring the analysis on metaphors as persuasive texts in global DRR policies, this article provides a third perspective about knowledge-building to argue that the rhetoric mirrored, rather than deflected or obscured, the reality of marginal knowledge integration. The article further illustrates how knowledge integration and inclusion meant the relegation of place-based knowledges to the category of ‘accessories’ to the techno-managerial features of DRR approaches.

Currently, floods are affecting over 16 million people in India, Bangladesh, and Nepal. In Nepal, the floods began late last week, and although the waters have begun to recede, communities are devastated. According to the Nepali government, the floods have killed at least 120 people, destroyed 7,000 homes, and displaced over 18,000 families. Although the accuracy of much of the data right now is questionable, the Nepali government is in the process of a rapid assessment of damage, and is likely to publicize the results soon.

Torrential rain and upstream water completely submerged around 94 percent of the town of Sunamganj and 84 percent of Sylhet districts in northeastern Bangladesh.

A shift in strategy from responding to recurring shocks to anticipating their effects has the potential to break the cycle of increasing reliance on humanitarian aid by protecting the most vulnerable and their livelihoods ahead of time. It can help manage crises in a more efficient and dignified way.

The FAO in consultation with the Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (RIMES), the Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre (FFWC), and other stakeholders, developed a pre-monsoon anticipatory action response plan for the Haor region under the 'Increasing Capacities and Scale for Anticipatory Action, including Through Social Protection Systems Project' which is funded by the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO).

Neglected and deprived of their rights for decades, lakhs of people living within Kosi River’s embankments in Bihar’s Supaul district face the fury of floods annually. According to a latest report, they are the victims of injustice caused by policy choices. As per People’s Commission on Kosi Basin report, released in Patna on Friday, the embankment are spread on 120,000 hectares, and 9.88 lakh people in 380 villages live on the Indian side (as per the 2011 census) while 1.5 lakh people live in 34 villages in Nepal.

People’s Commission on Kosi Basin, an independent commission formed in the light of resolution adopted at Kosi Mahapanchayat held recently in Supaul district to examine and find alternative ways of addressing the annual Kosi flood disasters, has blamed high siltation for the shifting course of the river, infamous as the “sorrow of Bihar". According to the report of the commission, the river has moved 120 Km westward in the last 250 years due to heavy natural sedimentation.

There has been an increase in the frequency and intensity of floods in the region straddling Nepal and northern Bihar. Stricken by acute poverty despite being rich in water resources, frequent floods, and shared vulnerabilities across borders, is a grave concern for the communities in the region. This hazard adversely impacts the lives and livelihoods of millions of people especially the poor and marginalised who draw their livelihood from the immediate environment. Hence, there is potential for bringing about positive impacts on the wellbeing of the dependent communities through sustainable actions at a transboundary scale. This paper focusses on the flood-related, transboundary challenges in the Koshi and Gandak river basins. It stresses that the floods have strong upstream-downstream linkages therefore, their management demands joint action at various levels of governance. Transboundary cooperation is essential for developing a relationship of trust and a common understanding to work towards managing floods, especially in downstream areas of Nepal and India. Potential actions for transboundary flood management between Nepal and India are recommended in this paper to enhance the resilience of communities and river basins.