Climate Change Effect on Natural Disasters in Nepal
Overview
The government of Nepal itself identifies the country as “one of the most disaster prone countries in the world due to its topography and climatic condition.” The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction agrees, reporting in 2019 that Nepal ranks in the top 20 of all “multi-hazard countries in the world.” The report further noted that over 80% of Nepal’s population risks exposure to natural disasters. Nearly one-third of the Himalayan range resides in Nepal resulting in altitude differences from 59 to 8,848 meters. This varied landscape coupled with seasonal monsoon rains contributes to geological and hydro-meteorological disasters. These manifest in the form of flooding, glacial lake outbursts, landslides and other debris flows, and droughts. Nepal also bears the burden of significant wildfires each year. All of these are severely exacerbated by climate change and environmental degradation.
Nepal’s population, according to its 2021/2078 census, is about 29.19 million people and indicates a rate of growth of approximately 1.35% over the last decade. The physical area of Nepal comprises about 147,000 square kilometers. Nepal’s population is currently densest in Kathmandu, followed by the Terai region (southern Nepal lowlands), and least dense in Manang District, which is an area of approximately 2,246 sq. km., over 80% of which sits at 3,000 meters and above. The Government of Nepal’s National Emergency Operation Center (NEOC) reports that human death tolls due to natural disasters are typically highest in the Terai region and lowest in the mountains, while property damage tends to be highest in the hill region between. Of the multiple types of disasters, fires rate as the highest reported category by nearly a factor of 10, very distantly followed by landslides and floods. Deaths, however, are relatively evenly distributed among fire, floods and landslides (over the long average; this varies significantly year-to-year).
Evidence indicates that the annual number of water and fire-based natural disasters in Nepal have been on the rise since at least 2016. Nepal News reports that the numbers have risen from about 2,000 reported disasters per year in 2015 to over 4,000 per year since 2018. The growth of floods and landslides over the last two decades has been especially large. The American Geophysical Union (AGU), notes that the general number of reported landslides and floods since 1980 rose roughly 400% for landslides and about 250% for floods. Practical Action Consulting Pvt Ltd. produced a report titled, “Developing National Disaster Risk Reduction Policy and Strategic Action Plan in Nepal: 2016-2030” for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2017, that detailed the largest disaster events to strike Nepal from 2005 to 2015. Notably, all events listed therein consisted of floods except for the Jure landslide in 2014 and the Gorkha earthquake in 2015.
Fires also ravage Nepal to great consequence. Increasingly serious droughts have contributed to rising numbers of wildfires. In 2021, for example, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) tracked widespread fires via a variety of satellites noting the second-highest number of hotspots seen since monitoring began in 2002. The number of detectable fires often reaches in the thousands each year, such as the 4,217 witnessed in 2009. In particularly bad years, large amounts of forests are lost to fire, such as 90% destruction of forests in the Terai region in 1995 and more than 70% of the Bardiya National Park in 2012.
Climate Change Impact
Mountain systems provide critical resources to humanity and their depletion is an imminent danger to resident populations. Nearly half of all people on the planet rely on these systems for water. In arid and semi-arid regions, for example, 70-95% of the population depends upon mountain-sourced water for survival. Eighty percent of the planet’s plant-based food sources originated in mountains. Nearly every mountain system on the planet also provides electricity in the form of hydropower to enormous populations. The Himalayan range contains the largest source of freshwater on Earth outside of the polar regions. Poverty in mountainous regions is typically higher than elsewhere, and the people there are at increased risk of disasters and negative changes to mountain ecosystems. Disasters manifest as flooding, landslides, and wildfires. [Food crises also occur, which arguably are natural disasters or arise from them, but this type of crisis exceeds the scope of this article]. While not all of Nepal is mountainous—the Tarai region comprises roughly 23% of the entire country’s land area and sits between about 67 and 300 m of elevation—what happens up high effects the residents everywhere else. Climate change has had a significant impact on the Himalayan region leading to faster warming there than the global average.
Accelerated warming has had an acute effect on the state of Himalayan glaciers. Between 1970 and 2000, 9 percent of the ice disappeared, and between 2003 and 2009, 174 gigatons of water were lost each year. That number is near impossible to visualize—it is 174 billion tons. Put another way, if this amount were distributed to every man, woman and child in India, each person would receive around 123 gallons of water each year. One study published in 2021 found that contemporary loss of glacier mass in East Nepal and Bhutan has accelerated ten-fold compared to any long-term assessment of previous fluctuations since the Little Ice Age. An imminent effect of this rapid change in Nepal is the advancement of glacial melting. Glacial melt results in the formation or expansion of new glacial lakes, which increases the chance of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF). According to research conducted by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), four GLOF events have occurred since 2003 that resulted in significant damage or casualties. ICIMOD also determined that there are currently 47 glacial lakes that pose a significant risk to lower-lying populations based on their volume, location and geological damming. Faster melting glaciers will undoubtedly compound this danger for the affected populations in the years to come.
Changing global climatic conditions have also led to increased precipitation volume across most of Nepal, and increased intensity of rainfall in especially important areas. Annual precipitation from 1986 to 2006 saw an increase of 163 mm, with a large increase occurring during the monsoon season and a slight decrease during the winter months. Nepal’s seasonal fluctuation is dominated by a monsoon cycle that typically commences in early June and persists for around four months. Since 1990, more frequent intense rain events have occurred and lighter, steadier rain events have decreased. These intense events tend to happen more often in areas of higher elevation, and higher intensity events lead to increased flooding. Like GLOFs, high elevation events originating in remote areas create a challenging obstacle for disaster preparation. Creating accurate predictive climate models of precipitation is complicated in Nepal for a variety of reasons, including the dearth of widespread data collection, urban expansion and its effects, and the general tumultuousness of the Himalayan climate on the whole. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to say that warming temperatures cause increased evaporation, which will likely lead to more frequent high-intensity precipitation and hydrological events already common in the region, complicating adaptation especially for impoverished residents.
Heavier rainfall also leads to higher numbers of landslides. In Nepal, landslides cause roughly the equivalent numbers of deaths per year as flooding. Unlike flooding, however, landslides are extremely hard to predict (though many continue to work on changing that). Heavy rainfall is the leading causal factor in 73% of Indian Himalayan landslides. A study by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and Stanford University, likewise concluded that increased rainfall in steep terrain greatly increases the chances of triggering a landslide. As noted above, high intensity rain events are increasing in higher elevations where steep terrain is prominent. In addition to localized death and damage, landslides cause disruptions to water flow, availability of drinking water and the viability of transportation networks. NASA points out that in 2019 alone, these effects led to the displacement of over 7 million people across Nepal, India and Bangladesh.
Just as heavier rainfall events are creating problems, so too is the lack of rain. Winter in Nepal is normally the dry season. Unfortunately, the frequency of precipitation-deficit droughts in Nepal has shown a significant increase over 32 years. The worst droughts since 1981 occurred in 2004 through 2009, except 2007. In the 2008-2009 winter, for instance, weather stations in parts of Nepal recorded less than 50% of normal rainfall, and some areas recorded almost no rainfall at all. Dhe village in upper Mustang had to be relocated in 2013 because of a lack of drinking water due to a drought that had persisted for the prior six or seven years. Notwithstanding the effects drought has upon agriculture and drinking water, the former of which supplies the livelihood for about half of all households in Nepal, increased droughts also are contributing to growing numbers of wildfires.
Studies have shown how drought conditions and wildfires share a symbiotic relationship. Shorter term droughts leave an abundance of fuels for fires sparked by natural causes such as lightning, or manmade causes such as industry or negligence. Droughts and higher-than-usual temperatures often go hand-in-hand, further exacerbating the fire risk. In Nepal in 2020-2021, this confluence led to more than 2,700 reported fires burning across Nepal between November and April. The spokesman for Nepal's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, Uddav Prasad Rijal, noted that it was a very dry winter that year. Moreover, reduced irrigable water from the drought made suppression of the fires extremely difficult or impossible in places. In 2016, nearly 3.7 million acres were lost to fire. Fires in 2012 consumed about 70% of Nepal's Bardiya National Park, which is a successful conservation area for elephants, tigers and rhinos. In addition to the obvious threat to life and property, wildfires release extraordinary amounts of pollution into the air. Fires in 2016 and 2021 released 27 and 18 megatons of carbon, respectively. The result is often a “very unhealthy” smog cloud covering vast amounts of the country, so thick it is visible from space. Even at the time of this writing, wildfire smoke has given Kathmandu the unwanted rank of most polluted city in the world, at least for a few days so far.
A Preview of Global Calamity
Nepal is a small, developing country within the greater global community. But what is happening there is a not-so-small microcosm of the impact climate change is having on enormous populations. For now, the effect may seem localized to Nepal and some adjacent countries, but the fact that these disasters are increasing more swiftly than elsewhere only presages what the rest of the world has in store. Moreover, it is inarguable that if devastation is wrought upon one of the largest freshwater sources on Earth, the problem will very quickly affect the rest of the world.
There are many organizations working on preserving the sustainability of the Himalayas. Local communities have relied upon this ecosystem for centuries and possess treasured knowledge that scientists, research organizations and non-profits should not ignore. One scholar noted that sustainability is “a field defined by the problems it addresses rather than by the disciplines it employs,” and that this requires a “shift toward engaged science,” which includes community stakeholders in the research and implementation of sustainability programs. This scholar calls this approach critical action research (CAR), and notes that it emerged in tandem with Nepal’s forestry development as an example of success. Another approach is also ongoing that seeks to build Nepal’s first university intent upon educating Nepal’s citizenry in a variety of disciplinary fields all geared toward the sustainable development of the country. This initiative, called the University of Nepal (UoN), plans to serve communities outside of Kathmandu where many environmental implications have a more direct impact.
These types of action plans in many ways put Nepal at the forefront of tackling climate issues. People living in and around the Himalayas have an imminent—and critical—stake in the survival of the ecosystem there, but in many cases lack the resources to which many other nations have access. Wealthy governments have a duty to contribute to sustainability programs and research. The evidence is overwhelmingly clear that continued global climatic changes are effecting the Himalayas more swiftly than elsewhere, and one of the world’s largest freshwater resources is at considerable risk. If the problems cannot be solved there, the rest of the world is in serious peril.
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