The wake of the August 26 flash floods in Nepal, which devastated several towns and villages, killed more than a thousand people, and left several more unaccounted for, follows a familiar pattern that emerged after the Chamoli floods, the South Lhonak Lake disaster, and the Thame floods: a call to rethink development in the region in light of risks exacerbated by climate change.
that there was a flood risk was not new information, with the surging waters only serving a reminder on the challenges of development in the Hindu Kush Himalaya While the flood caught everyone by surprise. As countries in this part of the Himalaya tap into hydropower, anomalous weather now demands more resilience. “Himalayan rivers in the monsoon carry exceptionally high sediment loads. “Sediment load is only sporadically monitored, and its threat is downplayed to the extent that the threat of sediment has not been adequately considered in the design of river infrastructure, especially in the case of projects involving reservoirs. “The tragedy of these plants is also, again, a climate justice one. In Chamoli, many of the workers who were working in Tapovan were from somewhere else completely, they were relatively poor, who had no agency, and they were exposed to something that they could not calculate,” Dr. “These nations must come together and seriously begin to discuss ways of designing infrastructure that resonate with the emerging reality of a changing climate and environment. With inputs from Gandla Sneha, intern with The Hindu data team.
Between 2014 and 2024, the latest year for which data is available with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), the region reported more than 2,500 landslides, 258 earthquakes, and several glacial lake outburst floods. In a 2023 report, ICIMOD noted that the suspended sediment load from the Hindu Kush Himalaya’s headwaters has increased by around 80% in the last six decades thanks to heavier rainfall, accelerating glacier melt, and thawing permafrost.
But we tend to measure water flow and volume, not sediment load in our rivers,” Kathmandu-based water and climate analyst Ajaya Dixit said. Steiner said. “And to some degree, you have the same here” in Nepal. “This disaster demonstrates that our highest-elevation regions are undergoing profound changes that we do not yet fully comprehend and will require us to change how we live in and live with these mountains,” Mr. Dixit said.
