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The global alarm of climate change in Nepal, as in South Asia region, has heavily impacted on monsoon withdrawal in the last two decades. Following the impact, experts suggest making a shift of paddy planting calendar by 10 days to two weeks delay. According to the data of the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM), the data analysis accumulated since 1968 shows that the monsoon withdrawal was traced in October in 1986 for the first time in the recorded weather history of Nepal. Indira Kadel, chief at the Climate Analysis Section, DHM, said that monsoon withdrawal  remained delayed till October from 2004 to 2022. “Only two times after 2004, the monsoon withdrawal occurred in September, once on September 29 in 2006 and another time on 28 September 2012,” she said. Kadel further said that the delay in monsoon withdrawal heavily impacted paddy harvesting. “Now, we need to reschedule the paddy plantation by 10 days to two weeks.” According to the DHM, the monsoon onset time has shifted from June 10 to 13 while the withdrawal time moved from September 23 to October 2 on average. Farmers in Nepal mostly plant paddy saplings from June 15 to July 15 in the plains of Tarai, where around 51 percent of the total population lives. Paddy farming in Nepal mostly depends on the monsoon rains rather than a systematic irrigation system. The paddy plantation ends in July in the hilly region. The representative paddy farmers from the Tarai region faced loss of rice production in both spring and autumn harvesting periods due to erratic monsoon rains. Purna Maya Adhikari, 42, from Chitwan has maintained her life from agriculture. There was a time when she used to save up to Rs 1m annually. But in recent years, she has been suffering losses during both harvesting periods, owing to rains, floods and hailstorms. “Sometimes, we face floods, heavy rainfalls, which inundate our paddy fields, and sometimes drought causes difficulties,” she said. “Rainfall used to be regular and normal until some years ago, but not these days.” The paddy planted in early June-July yields in early October. But there have been incidents where  ready to harvest paddy have been widely damaged by freak rains. “It’s all because of climate change,” said Kadel, of the DHM. “In our records tracked since 1968, the monsoon withdrawal took place mostly in September before 2003.” Rameshwar Rimal, agro-meteorology scientist at the Agriculture Environment Research Division, Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC), said global warming has affected the agriculture sector. “Though we are yet to conduct a detailed study on varieties of rice and its production dynamics, general speculation based on monsoon patterns suggests that the paddy plantation calendar must be shifted forward by 9-10 days to avoid paddy damage during harvesting time.” Nabin Shrestha, 44, a resident of Chitwan, and his family have been involved in rice farming for the past 40 years. Like other farmers, his family too have been facing troubles in paddy harvesting due to monsoon disturbances. “We harvest paddy in the first two weeks of October, but the rains have disturbed us in recent years, affecting the quality and quantity of rice production,” he said. Climate change is triggered by carbon emissions, pollution, deforestation and chemical oriented agriculture farming. Though Nepal emits low carbon (14.31 metric tons in 2021), it lies between highest carbon emission producers China (12,466.320 metric tons in 2021, highest in the world) and India (2,648.78 metric tons in 201, third highest in the world, following the US). Climate change concern for Nepal is a cross border problem. It's the regional concern, said Dr Abid Hussain, senior economist and food systems specialist at International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). “Climate change affects the sowing period of crops as well as the harvesting calendar. Adaptation processes must be changed as per climate change impacts.” The Nepal government has few policies on climate change and its mitigation, and they too are largely unimplemented. The Ministry of Forest and Environment, the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development are the key stakeholders that should be working on climate change issues. However, no ministry has translated the policies into action. The government officials themselves admit to this.  “Implementation part is less effective,” said Buddhi Sagar Paudel, division chief at the Climate Change Division at the Ministry of Forest and Environment. Climate change can cause droughts, floods, freak rainfalls and landslides, damaging human lives, productive lands, forests, and properties worth billions. Nepal has more than 6,000 rivers and streams, which constitute a total length of about 45,000 km, as per the government records. According to the temperature data recorded by the DHM between 1971 and 2014, the annual temperature rise remains 0.056 degrees Celsius on average. “Moreover, we witnessed an unusual heat wave in the eastern Tarai districts this May,” said Kadel. According to the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Authority (NDRRMC), 876 people died of floods in the last 12 years. In the same period, 563 people disappeared and 209 people got injured. Similarly, the NDRRMC record shows that 1,483 people lost their lives in the landslides, 347 disappeared and 1,224 injured. Likewise, 126 people were killed by the heavy rainfalls, two disappeared and 336 injured. A lowest estimate of properties worth NRs 20 billion was damaged by monsoon disaster during the last 12 years. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, Nepal faced a loss of about one million metric tons of ready to harvest paddy due to October rains in 2021. Similar damage recurred in 2022, owing to the freak rain in October. The country witnessed a severe drought in the plain areas of Tarai in 2006, causing decrease in paddy production. The economic cost attributable from climate hazards disasters is 80 percent owing to water related events, the Ministry of Forest and Environment (MoFE) report in 2018 revealed. Climate change impact on agriculture sector including drought affects 10 to 30 percent loss in its productivity, MoFE report 2021 said. The same report stated that average economic loss from climate induced disasters is over NRs 2,778million every year. Since 1993, the frequency of flash floods has increased rapidly, minimizing the gap years between two flash floods. In 1993, around 60,000 hectares of agricultural land was inundated and 67 irrigation schemes were washed away in central Nepal. Following this, other such floods occurred in 2007, 2008 (two times), 2012, 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2022. The Asian Development Bank reported that Nepal lost one million hectares of cropland in the last 41 years due to floods. The Ministry of Science and Technology, and Environment in 2014 estimated the annual economic cost for climate change with additional 2-3 percent of GDP by 2050. However, the government has done nothing more than formulating policies on climate change. “Climate financing in the country is very poor,” said Bishnu Hari Devkota, senior agro economy expert at the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development.  “We have developed nine projects worth NRs 11.2bn related to climate change to be executed by 2050, but these projects have not progressed due to the financial crunch.”

The monsoon season is just three weeks away, and the government is yet to take the measures to prevent and respond to potential disasters. According to the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM), the pre-monsoon period rains will begin in approximately two weeks. Typically, the monsoon season begins in the second week of June and lasts until September. The Terai region, which includes 22 districts, is highly susceptible to floods, while the hilly districts are vulnerable to landslides. However, the government lacks specific records regarding the presence of children and elderly individuals in the flood-prone areas of the country. The National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Authority (NDRRMA), the designated agency responsible for addressing natural disasters, has not yet formulated concrete plans to effectively handle the monsoon-induced disasters. “We are busy holding meetings to prepare for disaster management,” says Dhruba Bahadur Khadka, the spokesperson for NDRRMA. Had the authority been more foresighted, such meetings should have been held months ago. Data compiled by the NDRRMA shows that over the course of the past 12 years, floods have claimed the lives of 876 people, with an additional 563 reported missing and 209 injured. Similarly, landslides have resulted in the loss of 1,483 lives, with 347 people still missing and 1,224 others injured. Additionally, heavy rainfall has caused the death of 126 individuals, while two people remain unaccounted for, and 336 have been injured. The monetary damage caused by the monsoon disasters over the past 12 years is estimated to be Rs 20bn. Officials at the Ministry of Home Affairs acknowledge that despite witnessing significant loss of lives and properties, their preparations for monsoon disasters have remained poor. “We have been unable to effectively mitigate the impact of these disasters due to inadequate resources and management,” says an official at the ministry. Jitendra Basnet, joint secretary and spokesperson for the ministry, says the ministry has recently conducted coordination meetings with stakeholders to prepare for the upcoming monsoon season. “We are in the process of formulating plans,” he says. “We have directed the Nepal Police and the Armed Police Force to deploy personnel across all districts during emergencies. However, we face limitations in terms of budget, resources, and equipment.” According to Basnet, the NDRRMA will undertake all necessary tasks in this regard. Khadka, the spokesperson for NDRRMA, says they are currently gathering information regarding the availability of equipment such as tents, ambulances, ropes, and other necessary resources in districts and local bodies. “We have recently acquired eight mass-casualty ambulances. We have allocated one to each province and one to the federal government,” he says. “We have also trained 25 divers to conduct search and rescue.” The government has yet to initiate a hazard mapping survey to gather data on land elevation, geological structure, house construction, and the number of children and elderly individuals residing in vulnerable areas. “Although we had planned to conduct the survey at 134 local units, we have only managed to do so in about a dozen local units so far,” adds Khadka. Meanwhile, the NDRRMA has implemented an audio-visual notification warning system for floods in six districts: Banke, Bardiya, Kailali, Kanchanpur, Rautahat, and Saptari. “This siren system, equipped with audio-visual flood warnings, has been installed at 34 locations across 13 local units in these six districts,” says Rajendra Sharma, coordinator of technical team at the NDRRMA. The NDRRMA officials acknowledge that the current preparations are not sufficiently robust to effectively address the risks posed by monsoon disasters. They say that local bodies would provide support by utilizing public buildings as temporary shelters during emergencies. Furthermore, a new regulation has been introduced in the current fiscal year, requiring districts to maintain a minimum balance in their disaster management fund. According to the regulation, a mountainous district should have a minimum of Rs 1.5m in its disaster management fund, a hilly district should have Rs 2m, and a Terai district should have Rs 2.5m. However, the NDRRMA has not been monitoring whether the districts have been maintaining the disaster funds. The impact of rain-related disasters extends to agriculture, livestock, and public infrastructure. The NDRRMA suggests that the federal government should contribute 50-60 percent to the disaster management budget, while provinces can provide 30 percent and  local units can chip in 10-20 percent. Currently, the government provides compensation of Rs 10,000-20,000 per affected household in flood-affected areas and Rs 200,000 per deceased individual. However, in cases of multiple deaths within the same family, only Rs 100,000 is provided for the second or subsequent deaths. The Ministry of Home Affairs categorizes disaster management into four main areas: risk reduction, rescue operations, relief distribution, and reconstruction. Multiple ministries, organizations, and development partners are involved in these efforts. The clusters responsible for disaster management include ministries such as Agriculture and Land Development, Health and Population, Water Supply, Education, Science and Technology, Women, Children and Senior Citizens, Urban Development, Home Affairs, Federal Affairs and General Administration, and Communication and Information Technology. Moreover, development partners and organizations, such as FAO, WFP, WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, NRCS/IFRC, IOM, UNDP, and RCO, play co-leading roles in coordinating and assisting with disaster management initiatives. The NDRRMA has a fund of Rs 1bn disbursed from the Prime Minister’s Fund for Natural Disaster Rescue and Relief. However, the NDRRMA did not provide the details of expenses on reconstruction, risk reduction and relief distribution. The development partners had pledged to provide Rs 1.51bn in grants last year, but only Rs 960m was actually released. “The government had provided us with Rs 95m. Of the amount, Rs 40m was spent on salaries while Rs 50m was disbursed as grants for reconstruction,” says Khadka. The government has proposed a budget ceiling of Rs 194.04m for the NDRRMA in the upcoming fiscal year. However, officials express concerns that the proposed ceiling is inadequate to effectively address the plans for disaster mitigation and development. The NDRRMA has formulated the Disaster Risk Reduction National Strategic Workplan for the period 2018-2030. Despite having comprehensive plans, the lack of sufficient funding hinders the authority’s ability to tackle natural disasters effectively. Anil Pokharel, the CEO of NDRRMA, says there is a significant shortfall in funds for disaster risk reduction measures, which are crucial in mitigating disasters. “We have just begun planning for disaster risk reduction due to the prevailing financial crisis. An estimated $600m is required for the development of pre-information systems, and an additional $200m is needed for preparedness measures by the year 2030,” he says.