Pabitra Gurung

International Water Management Institute, Water, Food and Ecosystem, Senior Research Officer - Water Resources

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Address: House Number 9, Gharapjhong - 4,
Jomsom, 33100, Mustang,
Gandaki, Nepal

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Yale University

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National University of "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy"

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University College Cork

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Aden University

Hai-Yao DENG

The University of Manchester

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University of East London

Estella Weiss-Krejci

Austrian Academy of Sciences

Armando Marques-Guedes

UNL - New University of Lisbon

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Swansea University

Timothy O Randhir

University of Massachusetts Amherst

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Papers by Pabitra Gurung

Nepal: building climate resilience of watersheds in mountain eco-regions – climate change and vulnerability mapping in watersheds in middle and high mountains of Nepal. ADB Technical Assistance Consultant’s Report for Department of Soil Conservation and Watershed Management (DSCWM), Government of...

IWMI Research Reports, 2012

Hydrologic characterization of the Upper Ayeyarwaddy River Basin and the impact of climate change

Journal of Water and Climate Change

This study characterizes the hydrological regime of the Upper Ayeyarwaddy River Basin (UARB) of M... more This study characterizes the hydrological regime of the Upper Ayeyarwaddy River Basin (UARB) of Myanmar under current and future climate change scenarios by using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). The model simulation results show that the annual precipitation, actual evapotranspiration and water yields are 1,578, 524 and 1,010 mm, respectively. These will increase by 13–28%, 11–24% and 42–198% under two representative concentration pathways (RCPs), RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5, for the future. There is seasonal variability across the cool, hot and rainy seasons in the agro-ecological regions – mountains, hills and inland plains. As in other Asian regions, the model shows that the wet (rainy) season is becoming wetter and the dry (cool) season is becoming drier in the UARB too.

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VRA of Water Resources and Energy

Vulnerability and Risk Assessment and Identifying Adaptation Options in the Water Resources and Energy Sector in Nepal

Inter-basin Water Transfer: Is this a Solution for Water Scarcity?

Requirements of human are increasing tremendously with massive change along with the evolution of... more Requirements of human are increasing tremendously with massive change along with the evolution of human and its development. This creates stress on the natural resources; such as water, lands, forest, etc. Freshwater demand is highly increased with the growing population and the change in lifestyle of people. Hence, the concept of interbasin water transfer was developed to minimize water scarcity and to distribute water as per requirements. However, this has brought lots of negative consequences that became a challenge to preserve the earth systems. The National River Linking Plan (NRLP) is developed by the Government of India to resolve water scarcity and that plan became controversial especially on the transboundary water right issues. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to highlight all the major and minor consequences that might happen due to the NRLP project with the perspective of making sustainable environmental development. The study revealed that for the sustainable development; every issue related to nature, socio-cultural and transboundary water right must be addressed and water should be distributed in such a manner that it solves the issues of spatial and temporal water availability.

Learnings of the Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Projects Implementation: Moving from Recovery to Sustainability

These learnings are a consolidation of the numerous literatures read, discussion with the project... more These learnings are a consolidation of the numerous literatures read, discussion with the project team, observations in the field and especially interviews with the community people. The document summarises the best practices of the whole sustainable WASH process along with the gaps that could still be improved on for an enhanced sustainability. The WASH intervention is framed around the Community-Based WASH Management (CBWM) where the community are empowered to undertake the WASH action. Communities in Nepal are slowing getting around the idea of community participation in development activities and after the government restructuring, local communities have found more opportunities to work with the local government for community development as observed during the field visits. By working through the CBWM model, DCA has not only been able to provide the communities with WASH services but alongside have been able to empower and improve governance between the community and their government. The active engagement of the communities and the local government has added onto the social capital leading to case stories of match funding provided by the local government in the development action and communities assisting to build Point of Use (PoU) of the ultra-poor households. In all of this project cycle, one of the important strengths should come from the active engagement of the Water Users and Sanitation Committee (WUSC). DCA’s “Vulnerability Targeting” has also ensured that there is a transparent process for the selection of the most vulnerable communities. Proper Sanitation and Hygiene have been considered as equally important in the WASH intervention shifting from conventional approach where the “S and H” was given a secondary priority. A hybrid approach; PHAST (participatory hygiene and sanitation transformation) with Community led Total Sanitation (CLTS) was implemented to complement each other. Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) household survey for sanitation and hygiene along with monthly monitoring by the Community Health Promoters (CHP) were key to monitoring and encouraging communities to slowly transform the good practices into their daily habits. Additionally, workers protection program was also integrated during the construction of the water supply ensuring good occupational practices for the safety of the communities. Still, gaps can be found in the intervention approach and this document ensures that only the good practices have been captured but the further learnings are also recognised for the future. The shift of the government agenda to “One Tap One Household” has brought complication to the design of the supply system for which WASH practitioners should now advocate for the revision of the “Design Guidelines for the Rural Water Supply Schemes” developed in 2002. Despite the tremendous enthusiasm of the community, it is a reality that it can be difficult for the community to grasp the idea on “Community led” project. Hence, it becomes essential that the communities along with the WUSC are not only trained on the necessary skills, but they are repeatedly refreshed on this approach during the project period. Plus, the lack of active engagement of women in the skills like bookkeeping, water supply maintenance etc can still be found despite the numbers indicating their participation in the workshops and meetings held. A strong “Women Mentorship” program throughout the project period can provide them a chance to use their skills. The enthusiasm of the local government can be applauded but they can still improve their accountability to their constituents by extending their roles as supervising and monitoring for the sustainability of the WASH services especially for sanitation and hygiene. As local government are slowing building WASH department in their offices, WASH practitioners should work closely with them encouraging for their inputs and participation in the future. The need to revise on the “Functionality and Sustainability M&amp;E Framework” also comes on a time where the rural areas are now mostly populated by the elderly and the women and children left behind. The need to align the present community dynamics to the framework will mean that WASH practitioners are trying to understand the community structure and work as per the sensitivity. WASH service is now not only one of the goals of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) but is now the primary agenda from the federal government down to the local government. The difficult terrain of Nepal hinders for a national WASH service; hence community managed WASH scheme has been and can be a successful story. WASH practitioners should continually step to re-evaluate their approach to ensure that the water supply system is supplying water for more than a decade and the sanitation and hygiene practices are ingrained into their full life.

Projected Climate Change Scenarios over the Districts of Nepal

Climate Change Scenarios in Nepal

Climate change impacted the natural and human systems globally in both land and ocean; however, t... more Climate change impacted the natural and human systems globally in both land and ocean; however, the impact can be positive or negative. The climate change poses risks for both living being and natural resources. Least developing countries; like Nepal; are becoming more vulnerable due to their limited capacity to adapt it. Thus, the risk of climate change is assessed in this study by considering the eleven climate extremes indices that suggested by Government of Nepal. Where, changes in the indices has been standardized and identified the composite indexes. Result shows that Province 5 will have a higher risk and Province 2 will have a lower risk of climate change among all other provinces.

IWMI Research Report 159

From the mountains to the plains: impact of climate change on water resources in the Koshi River Basin

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Step wise Multi-criteria Performance Evaluation of Rainfall-Runoff Models using WETSPRO

Journal of Hydrology and Meteorology, 1970

This paper illustrates a methodology to evaluate model’s performance of rainfall runoff model usi... more This paper illustrates a methodology to evaluate model’s performance of rainfall runoff model using a tool called WETSPRO (Water Engineering Time Series PROcessing tool). Simulated results of physically based semidistributed model - SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) for Kliene Nete watershed (581 km2), Belgium are considered in this study. Paper presents a series of sequential time series processing tasks to be performed to evaluate model’s performance thoroughly. The problem of serial dependence and heteroscedasticity is addressed and model performance evaluation on different flow components (peak flows, low flows and volume) and flow volume is carried. Performance evaluation of both flow components on their extremes is also performed. Two most commonly used goodness-fit-statistics (Mean Square Error – MSE and Nash Sutcliff Efficiency − NSE) are used with number of complementary graphical plots for evaluation propose. Results indicated model’s robust performance on peak flows a...

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Climate Change and Vulnerability Mapping in Watersheds in Middle and High Mountains of Nepal

The Himalayan region is considered to be very sensitive to climate change due to the high variati... more The Himalayan region is considered to be very sensitive to climate change due to the high variation in altitudes. Changes in cloud cover and rainfall, particularly over land; melting of ice caps and glaciers and reduced snow cover are some of the prominent threats due to rise in temperature. The significant effect of climatic variability in major rivers and their tributaries has already been observed. As a result, rivers and tributaries, catchments, and watersheds are at risk from increased flooding, landslides, soil erosion, drought and more intense rain during the monsoon. Using watersheds as organizing units for planning and implementation of natural resources management is an approach being followed worldwide because large regions can be divided along topographic lines that transcend administrative boundaries and the status and trends analysis can be done on the basis of entire natural systems in concert with social conditions. The communities within the watersheds can also bett...

Use of a distributed catchment model to assess hydrologic modifications in the Upper Ganges Basin

River Basin Management VI, 2011

Allocation of river water to cities, industries and agriculture has been a common practice in riv... more Allocation of river water to cities, industries and agriculture has been a common practice in river basin planning and management. It is now widely accepted that water also needs to be allocated for aquatic environments-alongside the demands of other users. Discharge data are a prerequisite for calculating such environmental demands-Environmental Flows (EF)-regardless of the EF assessment method used. This paper describes the application of a distributed hydrological model (SWAT) to simulate discharges, which were then used for EF assessment in the Upper Ganges River in India (total area: 87000 km 2). The EF assessment was done using a multidisciplinary, multi-stakeholder approach (Building Blocks methodology). The EF method involved several stakeholder workshops with various expert groups and extensive field studies. This is the first time that a comprehensive EF assessment has been done in India. The characteristic feature of the study is that cultural and religious water demands were also incorporated into the assessment of EF requirements as the conservation of the river's spiritual traits were recognized by the stakeholders as being as important as the maintenance of its ecological integrity. The assessment resulted in EF requirements ranging from 72% of Mean Annual Runoff (MAR) in the upper stretches to 45% of (MAR) in the lower stretches, which is coherent with the ecological and spiritual status of the reaches.

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Downstream Impacts of the Melamchi Inter-Basin Water Transfer Plan (MIWTP) Under Current and Future Climate Change Projections

Hydro Nepal: Journal of Water, Energy and Environment, 2012

The Melamchi Water Supply Project (MWSP) is designed to minimize the shortage of drinking water i... more The Melamchi Water Supply Project (MWSP) is designed to minimize the shortage of drinking water in the Kathmandu valley. Although the project was supposed to be completed by 2008, due to various problems, it is still difficult to forecast the exact date of completion. This paper quantifies the downstream effects of diverting water from the Melamchi (Stage-I), Yangri (Stage-II) and Larke (Stage-III) rivers under current as well as future climate scenarios. The Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was used in the analysis. Result shows that in the Stage-I water transfer plan, average inflow reduction in the immediate downstream sub-basin in the dry and wet seasons are 36% and 7% respectively, where as in Stage-II the inflow reductions are 38% for the dry season and 8% for the wet season. In Stage-III, inflow reductions are 38% in the dry season and 7% in the wet season.The impact of the water transfer schemes on various changes in water management within the Melamchi River irrigation com...

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Calibration and Validation of SWAT Model for Low Lying Watersheds: A Case Study on the Kliene Nete Watershed, Belgium

Hydro Nepal: Journal of Water, Energy and Environment, 2011

Use of easily accessible; public domain modeling software called Soil and Water Assessment Tool (... more Use of easily accessible; public domain modeling software called Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and its testing in watersheds has become essential to check developers' claims of its applicability. The SWAT model performance on Kliene Nete Watershed (Belgium) is examined. Given the watershed’s characteristic of a low lying; shallow ground water table, the test becomes an interesting task to perform. This paper presents calibration and validation of the watershed covering area of 581km2 . Flow separation is carried on using Water Engineering Time Series Processing tool (WETSPRO) and shows that around 60% of the total fow is contributed by base fow. Altogether seven SWAT model parameters have been calibrated with heuristic approach for the time frame of 1994-1998. Validation of these calibrated parameters in another independent time frame (1999-2002) is carried out. The parameter CH_k2 (Channel Effective Hydraulic Conductivity) is found to be the most sensitive. Nash Sutclif...

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Hydrological Modelling using Spatially Distributed Rainfall Data

This thesis studies the use of spatially distributed rain in the physically based hydrological mo... more This thesis studies the use of spatially distributed rain in the physically based hydrological models. In recent years, spatially distributed radar rainfall data is becoming available. The spatially distributed radar rain observation is used to model hydrologic processes for the more precise. The radar data, distributed in 600 m x 600 m and 670 m x 670 m grid cells are, obviously more realistic than the past practice of distribution method like Thiessen polygons. Radar provides a highly accurate spatial description of the rainfall and greatly improves the basin average rainfall estimates. However, quantifying the exact amount of rainfall by radar measurements is relatively difficult. This thesis is a case study applying hourly radar precipitation observation from 15 January to 15 February 2005 obtained from RMI (data belongs to Wideumont and Zaventem weather radar stations) in a WetSpa model on the Kleine-Nete basin (Belgium). A comparison is made between model results of including radar distributed and Thiessen polygon rainfall in the hydrological model. Unfortunately, WetSpa Model and other traditional hydrologic models are not equipped to directly ingest spatially distributed rainfall input. Hence, the fully distributed approach of WetSpa model is modified to enable spatially distributed rainfall input. The comparative plots of hydrograph and results of hydrological components; such as evapotranspiration, surface runoff, soil moisture, recharge and interflow; reflect the spatially distributed radar input performing well for model outflow calculation. The model performance is even better with the radar observations within the 120 km from weather radar station

Hydrological Assessment of the Transboundary Koshi River Basin

ABSTRACT ICIMOD&#39;s Koshi Basin Programme (KBP) is contributing to inclusive proverty reduc... more ABSTRACT ICIMOD&#39;s Koshi Basin Programme (KBP) is contributing to inclusive proverty reduction in the basin by evaluating the range of possible water-related development pathways considering cliamte change, hazards risks and freshwater ecosystems sustainability. The KBP is collaborating with International Water Management Institute (IWMI) to assess water resource availability and demand trends, and water resource development scenarios. This poster presents early results of the hydrological regime in the basin (about 87,500 km2) in terms of water balance and will form the basis for water availability-demand analysis.

Downstream hydrological impacts of the Melamchi inter-basin water transfer plan

ABSTRACT

Application of the SWAT Model to assess climate change impacts on water balances and crop yields in the West Seti River Basin

ABSTRACT The West Seti River basin is located in the far western region of Nepal and has a catchm... more ABSTRACT The West Seti River basin is located in the far western region of Nepal and has a catchment area of 7,438 km2 and annual rainfall of approximately 1921 mm. According to Siddiqui et al., (2012) this basin is one of the most vulnerable in Nepal. The average elevation of the basin is 2505 m but can vary from 314 m to 7043 m in the Api and Nampa high mountain ranges. Agricultural land in this basin is categorized into three types: level terraces; slope terraces; and, valleys. The major summer cereal crops in the basin are rice, maize and millet and the major cereal crops are wheat and barley. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is used to simulate water balances in different cropping patterns under current and future climates. The results show that total precipitation over rice, maize, millet, wheat and barely fields are 1002 mm, 818 mm, 788 mm, 186 mm and 169 mm respectively whereas total simulated actual evapotranspiration (ET) are 534 mm, 452 mm, 322 mm, 138 mm and 177 mm respectively under current climate. Actual ET will change by +0.7% in rice, +3.4% in maize, -3.4% in millet, +41.2% in wheat and +36.2% in barley under future climate projections. Results show that yield of rice, maize and millet will decrease by 10%, 7.9% and 26.1% whereas yield of wheat and barley will increase by 7.8% and 5.8% respectively. Therefore, the impact of climate change shows that summer crop yields will decrease and winter crop yields will increase.