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Developed by the Government of Punjab and ICIMOD, the upgraded Air Quality Portal brings together observations, forecasts, and analytical tools to support faster and more transparent decision-making on air pollution.
Every winter, severe air pollution returns to haunt the people of Punjab, Pakistan, and beyond, as stagnant weather conditions trap pollutants near the ground. Cities become enveloped in a hazardous haze, and asthma and other grave illnesses spike, particularly among children and the elderly, and daily routines are frequently disrupted. For instance, in October 2025, Lahore recorded a citywide Air Quality Index (AQI) of 412, triggering revised school timings and public health alerts in several districts, including Faisalabad and Multan.
The AQI scale followed by Pakistan ranges from 0 to 500, with the following categories:
| AQI Range | Category |
| 0-50 | Good |
| 51-100 | Satisfactory |
| 101-150 | Moderate |
| 151-200 | Unhealthy for sensitive groups |
| 201-300 | Unhealthy |
| 301-400 | Very unhealthy |
| 401-500 | Hazardous |
To respond to such severe air pollution promptly and comprehensively, authorities need access to robust data, including information on sources and the various kinds of pollution, where it is intensifying, and how conditions are likely to change over the next few days.
A clearer picture of Punjab’s air
These public policy and health objectives underlie the development and upgradation of the Air Quality Portal Punjab, Pakistan, launched on 7 September 2026, the United Nations International Day of Clean Air for blue skies, by the Government of Punjab and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). The dashboard has been developed by the Environment Protection and Climate Change Department (EPCCD) of the Government of Punjab and ICIMOD’s Air team. It tracks major pollutants, including fine particulate matter (PM2.5), PM10, carbon monoxide, ozone, nitrogen oxides, and sulphur dioxide. This information is essential to understanding the different types and sources of pollution that Punjab receives.
The EPCCD and ICIMOD sought to combine different streams of air quality information in a single platform, including ground monitoring, satellite products, atmospheric modelling, and AI-enabled tools. The technical challenge lay not only in the collation and display of more data, but in organising the complex information in a manner that would help users move easily between getting a provincial-level overview and information about location-specific air pollution patterns.
A key improvement is the dashboard’s forecasting capabilities, which use data from NASA’s Goddard Earth Observing System to provide 72-hour PM2.5 projections. This provides authorities a near-future view of the likely pollution trends and the severity of any air pollution episode.
This shift from observation to anticipation is crucial in supporting preparedness, increasing interdepartmental communication, and promoting clearer risk communication protocols. It helps agencies examine how pollution behaves, which is important for any agency in the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) airshed to understand.
The IGP airshed stretches from eastern Pakistan through northern India and southern Nepal into Bangladesh. Given the nature of the IGP, air pollution flows freely through the airshed. Enhancing national air quality monitoring capabilities benefits the region by showing how pollution transcends national boundaries and helps countries understand the sources and sinks of air pollution.
Importantly, it also allows for other countries in the region to learn from best practices employed, which can be adapted for regional forecasts or management practices. For example, it can prompt improved coordination to better manage the social and productivity aspects of air pollution, including health advisories or workplace restrictions based on reliable atmospheric pollution data.
The Air Quality Portal will help the Punjab government take faster and better-targeted actions, and is hence an important asset in the government’s plan for better air quality management. It translates complex science into a practical tool, and will be vital in providing a clearer and future-forward view of prevailing air pollution conditions in Punjab, Pakistan, with potential gains for people in the province and beyond.
ICIMOD’s work on air pollution with the Government of Pakistan is supported by the Himalayan Resilience Enabling Action Programme (HI-REAP), funded by the UK International Development through its flagship Climate Action for a Resilient Asia (CARA) programme.
When the then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called energy ‘the golden thread’ that could connect economic growth, social equity, and environmental sustainability in 2012, the phrase stuck. How that pathway runs has been a research question ever since, and a recent study tested it in rural Myanmar.
The South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE) at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) hosts the Karl-Göran Mäler (KGM) Memorial Lecture twice a year, in memory of Mäler, one of SANDEE’s founders. The June 2026 Memorial Lecture, ‘Electrifying empowerment: Evidence from Africa and Myanmar’, was delivered by Subhrendu K. Pattanayak, Oak Foundation Distinguished Professor of Environmental and Energy Policy at Duke University, during SANDEE’s 51st Research and Training Workshop in Kathmandu. Pattanayak and coauthors ask whether energy access empowers women, or whether more empowered women are the ones who adopt cleaner energy. Soumya Balasubramanya, Senior Economist at the World Bank and SANDEE Advisor, moderated the session.
ICIMOD’s 2025 renewable energy report states that around 829 million people across the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH)1 countries still rely on traditional biomass for cooking, while over 47 million lack access to electricity. Governments, development banks, and development partners have responded through investments ranging from rural electrification to large hydropower projects. These investments are expected to provide multiple benefits: improving health, enhancing the local environment, mitigating carbon emissions, increasing household incomes, and easing women’s time burdens. But ICIMOD’s 2019 HKH assessment cautions that time saved through cleaner cooking, which reduces firewood collection time, does not necessarily become income-earning time. What energy access changes and under what conditions remain open empirical questions.
A 2021 systematic review by Jeuland and colleagues2 found the evidence uneven: plentiful on the health and pollution effects of cooking and fuel use, but sparse on women’s time use and empowerment. Part of the problem is direction. Cleaner energy may widen women’s options, but more empowered women are also more likely to acquire cleaner technology to begin with. The field, Pattanayak argued, has often treated this evidence as more settled than it is. His own work, therefore, goes straight at how women use their time and who holds power at home. In cookstove trials across four African countries, his team tested three methods for tracking women’s time and used household bargaining games to see who controls decisions. Both are hard to measure well, which is part of why that evidence stays inconclusive.
The Myanmar study was a randomised trial across 66 villages in southern Myanmar, half of which were off-grid solar-electrified and half were not. The intervention, edutainment (an approach that combines education and entertainment to make learning more engaging, memorable, and effective), consisted of two parts. Women listened to a 7-minute audio recording about a woman who sets a goal and achieves it, then worked through a short goal-setting exercise of their own. Across all villages, the intervention raised women’s empowerment by about 0.29 standard deviations. The gains sat in two of the five dimensions the study measured: financial agency and business agency. Treated women were more likely to hold their own savings, bank, or mobile money account, and rated their own ability to do business higher. The clearest gain was in identifying new opportunities. The overall effect held with or without access to electricity, and it was largest for women who started with the least agency.
Aspirations were another story. On average, the intervention barely moved them – income, children’s schooling, and the overall aspirations index all stayed flat. Differences appeared only once the villages were split by electrification. In unelectrified villages, women raised the schooling they hoped their children would complete by about 2 years, a shift absent in solar villages. Interest in productive appliances increased only in the dark villages, and household decisions showed the same pattern. Aspiration for education expenses, business loans, and time allocated for childcare improved in these ‘dark’ villages. And the two effects came from different women: agency gains among the least empowered, aspiration shifts among those who already had more schooling and ambition.
Many of the prevailing socioeconomic conditions in these villages were not similar to begin with. Solar-electrified villages had more schools and more households that owned productive appliances or ran nonfarm businesses. Therefore, for a woman from these villages, a recorded story about her children’s schooling did not add much to aspirations she had already formed by watching her neighbours. In the unelectrified villages, however, there was less of this to see, and a longer way for a mother’s expectations to travel. The surroundings mattered more than the electricity. And in those same villages, women raised their sights even for appliances they could not yet plug in.
The study was conducted across two regions in Myanmar and spanned the COVID-19 pandemic and a political change. Current results from the study do not settle the ‘golden thread’ question, but they do give reason to doubt an assumption behind many energy programmes: that once access expands, higher aspirations will follow on their own. Based on that logic, the unelectrified villages were the last place to expect them. That makes it worth asking what a village already offers a woman before anyone spends anything there.
[1] Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan.
[2] Jeuland, M., Fetter, T. R., Li, Y., Pattanayak, S. K., Usmani, F., Bluffstone, R. A., ... & Toman, M. (2021). Is energy the golden thread? A systematic review of the impacts of modern and traditional energy use in low-and middle-income countries. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 135, 110406.
International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) mourns the passing of Dr Amir Muhammed, distinguished Pakistani scientist, educationist, agricultural leader, and former Member of the ICIMOD Board of Governors.
Dr Muhammed served as an Independent Member of the ICIMOD Board of Governors from 2006 to 2013, bringing to the centre his exceptional expertise in agricultural research, institutional development, science, and sustainable mountain development.
His association with ICIMOD dates back further: in the 1990s, he led the centre’s first independent evaluation, known as the Quinquennial Review (QQR). The exercise contributed significantly to strengthening ICIMOD’s governance, strategic direction, and programme delivery.
Dr Muhammed made an exceptional contribution to Pakistan’s agricultural research and scientific development. He was the founding Chairman of the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) and served as Federal Secretary of Agriculture. He also served as Vice Chancellor of the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan, and played a pivotal role in establishing the Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology (NIAB), Pakistan.
A distinguished scholar, Dr Muhammed earned his doctorate from the University of Oxford and was a Fellow and former President of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences, serving as its President from 1992 to 1996. His leadership and expertise extended well beyond Pakistan through his service on the boards and advisory bodies of several leading agricultural and development institutions.
Later in his career, as the founding Rector of the National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences (FAST-NUCES), Dr Muhammed played a formative role in building one of Pakistan’s leading institutions for computer science and emerging technologies.
Dr Amir Muhammed leaves behind a remarkable legacy spanning agricultural science, higher education, research, and institution-building. His lifelong commitment to advancing knowledge, nurturing scientific excellence, and strengthening institutions in Pakistan and beyond will be remembered with deep respect and gratitude.
ICIMOD extends its heartfelt condolences to his family, colleagues, students, and the many people whose lives and work he touched and inspired. His contributions will remain part of the institutions and communities he helped shape.
May his soul rest in eternal peace.
Permafrost, frozen ground that remains at or below 0° Celsius for two or more years is an important component of the cryosphere across the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region. However, it remains one of the least studied components of the region's cryosphere. Beyond the Tibetan Plateau, the region still lacks a full observation system: permafrost boreholes, standardised monitoring methods, and an operational regional network are yet to be established. As warming accelerates across high mountain environments, improving understanding of permafrost distribution, degradation, and related hazards is becoming increasingly important for mountain communities, researchers, and decision-makers.
Experts at the regional dialogue on permafrost research in the Hindu Kush Himalaya | Photo: Jitendra Bajracharya/ICIMOD
Recognising this growing need, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) convened regional experts and partners for a week (27- 31 July 2026) bringing together technical training, gender equality and social inclusion (GESI)-integrated cryosphere governance and science communication, and dialogue to advance permafrost research across the HKH.
Experts gathered for the regional dialogue agreed that the region has a strong scientific foundation to build on, but this needs to be supported by a stronger observation system. There are reasons for optimism: efforts are gaining momentum across the HKH in regional permafrost mapping, remote sensing, rock glacier inventories, climate modelling, and targeted field studies.
Workshop on energy balance modelling of permafrost environments in the HKH invited early-career scientists and researchers, PhD scholars, and master’s-level students working on permafrost-related topics in the HKH to apply for the three-day training. A total of 20 participants were selected from over 100 applicants. Participants gained practical exposure to surface energy balance modelling using a numerical model, including model setup, input data preparation, simulation of surface energy fluxes, snow and ground temperature dynamics, model evaluation, and interpretation for Himalayan permafrost settings.
Workshop on energy balance modelling for permafrost was led by John Mohd Wani, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Trento, Italy | Photo: Jitendra Bajracharya/ICIMOD
ICIMOD has been piloting permafrost research to better understand the impacts of permafrost thaw and its possible effects on steep slopes. It began piloting permafrost research in 2013 with mapping of HKH-wide permafrost distribution using rock glacier polygons. In 2014, ICIMOD installed ground temperature sensors in Langtang Valley, central Nepal. Since then, permafrost research in the region has gradually gained momentum, such as ongoing collaboration in Nepal's remote Limi Valley in Humla district, western Nepal with Tribhuvan University, some sensors deployed in Hidden Valley, Mustang district, western Nepal and in Bhutan, where work with the National Center for Hydrology and Meteorology at Shodug Glacier has entered its third year of permafrost data collection.
As this research grows, it is equally important to ensure that scientific knowledge is communicated effectively and reaches the people and institutions who can use it. Recognising this, ICIMOD organised a focused session on gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) and science communication. The session underscored the need to communicate cryosphere research in ways that are accessible, inclusive, and relevant to diverse audiences: policymakers, practitioners, and mountain communities.
The participants discussed initial findings from the draft GESI framework for linking cryosphere changes, hazards, and societal impacts in the HKH. These discussions highlighted the urgency of understanding how changes beneath the surface of high mountain landscapes are contributing to emerging risks.
Recent hazard events across the region point to the urgent need for greater awareness as communities across the region are already experiencing heightened disaster risks potentially linked to permafrost thaw, underscoring the importance of translating scientific findings into practical knowledge. This focus on practical knowledge also highlighted the importance of inclusive communication to connect research with action. The participants discussed how clear language and accessible visuals can help communicate effectively, support preparedness, policy engagement, and strengthen community resilience.
Sudip Maharjan, Design Officer, ICIMOD explaining how to use graphics to explain scientific process to audience | Photo: Jitendra Bajracharya/ICIMOD
The week concluded with a regional dialogue bringing together scientists, government representatives, and institutional leaders from Bhutan, China, India, Nepal, and Pakistan to assess the state of permafrost research in the HKH. Participants highlighted the need for stronger data-sharing platforms, sustained collaboration, and greater political commitment, so that emerging science can inform decisions that benefit mountain communities.
The Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) are, in the truest sense, the world's water tower. Stretching over 3,500 kilometres across eight countries, the region is home to around 270 million people, while its river systems sustain the water, food, energy, and livelihood security of more than 2.1 billion people living both within and beyond the mountains. Within this broader landscape, the Integrated Climate Adaptation Solutions for the Hindu Kush Himalaya Region (HI-CAS) project focuses on Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal, where changing precipitation patterns, rising temperatures, land-use change, and ecosystem degradation are intensifying climate risks for mountain communities that depend directly on natural resources and climate-sensitive livelihoods. Rapidly and unequally.
In Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), for instance, eleven recognised ethnic groups including the Chakma, Marma, and Tanchangya make up roughly half the population of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). Historically, they depended on ‘jhum’ or shifting cultivation, but shortened fallow cycles, land availability, and erratic monsoons have eroded its viability. With springs reported to be drying in 74% of Nepal's local governments, water scarcity is intensifying and increasing unpaid care and water collection responsibilities for women to fetch water. And in Bhutan, women make up nearly two-thirds of the agricultural workforce but earn just about half the annual income of their male counterparts. When water, irrigation, and agrobiodiversity systems fail, the costs land on their primary users who have the least role in creating the crisis and the fewest resources to absorb it.
Existing interventions helping these communities adapt often fall into one of three areas: springshed management, which focus on rejuvenating drying mountain water sources through nature-based catchment interventions; renewable energy-powered irrigation, which replaces diesel-dependent pumping with solar-based systems to improve irrigation access; and agrobiodiversity practices, which restore indigenous crop diversity and traditional seed systems whilst supporting livelihoods, nutrition and food security. Putting this into practice, ICIMOD, with funding from Global Affairs Canada, and in partnership with CEAPRED, Arannayk Foundation and Tarayana Foundation have recently launched the Integrated Climate Adaptation Solutions for the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HI-CAS) project.
Where are interventions falling short?
Our baseline assessment for the HI-CAS project examined the current status of these interventions. We found that none of these solutions build resilience at scale and in sustainable ways unless they are understood as interconnected and designed and implemented holistically. And that none can support inclusive climate justice without deliberate attention to gender equality, disability and social inclusion. Power doesn't shift just because the technology does and four dimensions unmask places where exclusion shows up, where gains could stall, or reverse, as the work scales.
Technical training defaults to men because the technology is socially constructed as men's work. While this pattern was noted in solar irrigation technology, it holds wherever access is“open to everyone”. In Bangladesh's CHT, the assessment found that only 1 of 47 participants had ever accessed an agricultural training, and that language and literacy barriers mean information about subsidies and opportunities often does not reach women or is not understood when it does. In Nepal, focus group discussions described long waiting periods for irrigation turns of up to 13 days compressing labour into narrow windows that leave little space for training or participation. And even where governance structures open a door, walking through it takes years: a female Karbari (village chief) in Khagrachari, an outlier in a governance structure dominated by male traditional authorities, noted that it took years to gain the men's trust.
Governance structures that produce tokenism. Water user committees are male dominated by design. When women are present, their roles tend toward administration rather than in decisions over allocations and budgets. Springshed governance that extracts women's maintenance labour while excluding them from authority over water allocation reproduces inequality even when it delivers ecological outcomes. In Bhutan, the same pattern holds in community forestry structures linked to springshed protection: the presence of women and most disadvantaged groups is institutionalised but not their leadership.
Indigenous knowledge unrecognised and undocumented. Women across all three countries play a critical role as custodians of traditional ecological practices, seed diversity and post-harvest management. This knowledge, though directly relevant to agrobiodiversity interventions, remains largely oral, informal, and absent from formal training content. Extension systems that increasingly prioritise uniform commercial crops are eroding intergenerational transmission of knowledge and skills.
Women's economic contribution made invisible. Labour in water collection, spring maintenance, and subsistence farming is categorised by country statistical systems as domestic support rather than economic work. Women receive no compensation, generate no employment records, and accumulate no assets through their adaptation-related contributions. Women remain invisible in the technology systems that increasingly mediate access to productive resources. Control over income and assets remains concentrated with men regardless of who performs the work.
So, what does GESI-responsive scaling require?
Adaptation solutions need certain non-negotiable commitments if outcomes are to benefit the populations who bear the greatest climate burden. We propound three commitments which would anchor this approach:
First, decision-making authority must be shared structurally. Water user groups require co-chairs holding equal authority, not a token deputy seat. That only holds if men engage as allies rather than gatekeepers and how GESI responsive orientation is built into technical delivery rather than bolted on as a separate workstream. Second, every adaptation intervention must demonstrably reduce women's time poverty. This requires baseline time-use surveys and embedded childcare and mobility support from the start. Third, gender-responsive budgeting must apply across all activities, with institutional GESI-responsive codes tracking allocation and expenditure against GESI outcomes at each governance level.
Beyond these non-negotiables though, a second set of actions targets the specific indicators along which climate adaptation either narrows or widens gender gaps, i.e., GESI-analysis and data segregation in feasibility studies, decision-making role in livelihoods, asset ownership and income control, group membership and leadership, and time poverty/workload linked to unpaid care.
Meaningful inclusion and engagement. This requires redesigning how trainings are delivered, not just who attends. Facilitation teams should include women, IPLC knowledge holders, and persons with disabilities. Sessions should run in local languages at care-friendly times. Training content should combine tasks women already lead such as seed management, water scheduling, and post-harvest handling with the skills and access to engage with technology adoption which has historically been male domains.
Equitable distribution of benefits. A role charter system for each user group should set at least 50 percent of overall roles and 30 percent of decision-control roles for women, with rotation rules to prevent elite capture. A community knowledge centre near intervention sites, gender-balanced in staffing and offering onboarding, technical advisory, and safeguarding support, creates a trusted access point that does not depend on male-dominated networks. Women's groups and Indigenous Peoples’ networks must evolve from project participants into accountability actors who can engage with policies, budgets, and implementation processes long before and after programme cycles end.
Social and economic empowerment. Women's adaptation-related labour must be directly compensated at or above local wage rates and paid via mobile money to prevent interception. Indigenous knowledge must be documented, recognized as prior learning (RPL) and integrated into adaptation curricula as climate expertise rather than informal background. Community-level water economics dashboards can normalise women as economic stakeholders rather than service users.
Finally, and in conclusion, governance structures that embed Free, Prior and Informed Consent principles, prevent concentration of decision-making power, and link all user bodies to functional grievance and safeguarding pathways are what will make such change durable. Without them, technically sound climate solutions will deliver uneven benefits and perpetuate layers of exclusion. Populations that carry the greatest climate burden will continue to have the least say in shaping the solutions designed in their name. Once gender-responsive, indigenous-centric practices move beyond individual projects into sub-national plans, policies, and institutional systems, livelihoods and community capacities in the HKH will be better safeguarded.
At 4,300 metres above sea level (masl) on the China-Nepal border near Nyalam town, 22-year-old Jiao Mengjie, a PhD student of geological engineering from Yangtze University, China stands at a proglacial river corridor, reading the evidence left by past floods: channel forms, flood paths, debris deposits, and erosions along riverbanks. Further up, her colleague, 26-year-old Jia Wenjun is taking measurements as she scrutinises, jots down, and photographs sediment deposits and exposed assets. These are routines in field geology and glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) research which has traditionally remained male dominated. Such work can indeed be harsh: long journeys, steep slopes, mountain weather, unstable riverbanks, heavy equipment, and careful observation under pressure. But what stands out is not the difficulty, it is how young women scientists are now taking leading roles in the field as observers, data collectors, communicators, and as emerging leaders in transboundary disaster risk reduction.
The China-Nepal border region is highly prone to disaster events such as GLOFs, landslides, river erosion, and sediment surges. Hazards that begin high in glacierised catchments can move rapidly downstream, affecting roads, settlements, hydropower facilities, bridges, and livelihoods. Mengjie and Wenjun are part of a China-Nepal research team carrying out a joint field investigation on transboundary GLOF hazards. The team they are involved in includes officials and researchers from the Ministries of Water Resources and Foreign Affairs of China, Water Resources Department of the Xizang Autonomous Region, Yangtze University, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), and research institutions from the two countries. Their field mission combined a series of key activities conducted across Kathmandu in Nepal, and Gyirong and Zhangmu in China-Nepal border areas.
From 23 May to 3 June 2026, Mengjie and Wenjun’s team from Yangtze University contributed to field investigation, installation of seismic monitoring stations, monitoring data collection and transmission, disaster database verification, and technical support for a future warning platform, including three seismic monitoring stations at Gyirong and Zhangmu sites on both sides of the border. Part of the delegation also visited Nepal’s energy, water resources, hydrology, disaster management, academic, and hydropower stakeholders, and conducted interviews and training workshops with communities along transboundary river corridors. The work feeds into laying a foundation for a future China-Nepal GLOF early warning platform that is built around joint upstream-downstream investigation, integrated information on multi-hazard chains, monitoring and early warning systems that combine technical structures and community-based communication, and practical disaster risk reduction tools including timely outreach and trainings.
For young women scientists, this work is transformative in ways that go beyond just data collection. It turns textbook hazards into living systems: a glacial lake from a polygon on maps to a massive body of water; a landslide from a modelled scenario to actual destruction on the ground; and feeling the warning threshold beyond being just a number. These concepts become connected to people: hydropower operators, residents, engineers, officials, and first responders. The field becomes a classroom, a laboratory, and a diplomacy space. Mengjie described this shift, “Before the fieldwork, I understood GLOF risks mainly through maps, reports, and models. But standing beside the actual river, looking at traces of floods, comparing them with what we have captured via satellite made the risk realistic. It reminded me that science is not complete until it can support people who need to make decisions on the grounds.”
The work is intentionally designed to move from data to decision support, and from field evidence to local preparedness, and this is where ‘Women on rocks’ becomes more than a slogan. In the earlier hydropower collaboration, young women researchers helped assess landslide and debris flow risks. The new GLOF work extends that spirit from rock slopes to river corridors, from hydropower sites to transboundary warning systems, and from individual field experience to regional resilience. Wenjun saw the connection between technical work and cooperation. “What impressed me most was how transboundary disaster risk reduction is built through practical details: checking instruments, verifying data, listening to communities, and discussing the same river with colleagues from different institutions and countries,” she said. “Fieldwork gave me not only confidence that young women researchers can contribute to observations and data, but also patience, communication, and trust needed to become a real scientist,” she added.
The reflections from these two young women researchers show a broader shift in who gets to do the science and how, and that inclusion is not just an add-on to good science practice. A research team with members from diverse social and gender backgrounds is likely to ask different questions, recognise different dimensions of risks, and widen the pathways through which knowledge travels. When women researchers are included in designing monitoring systems, and are leading community engagement, early warning systems reflect the ground reality. This is not because women are inherently better at these tasks, but because diverse and inclusive perspectives shape the questions that are asked, the data that are collected, and ultimately the quality and usefulness of the science.
This activity aligns with ICIMOD’s wider commitment to youth and women in science. In 2024, ICIMOD initiated the HKH women on ice to address gender imbalance in field-based cryosphere science and to empower women from the region with knowledge, skills, mentoring, and professional networks. Likewise, ICIMOD’s youth initiative seeks to position youth as knowledge holders who can influence climate science, policy, and diplomacy.
The future of transboundary disaster risk reduction needs to be people centred, especially those who can move between boundaries: between science and policy, between up and down streams and mountain slopes, between China and Nepal, and between technical modelling and community preparedness. There is the need for more young women researchers like Mengjie and Wenjun to become part of this bridge, to help translate field evidence into risk communication, monitoring protocols, shared datasets, training materials, and eventually the trust needed for cooperation. This is embedded in the broader HKH river resilience agenda: women and youth should be recognised not only as vulnerable groups, but as agents of change – citizen scientists, local leaders, first responders, and members of basin level cooperation.
This China-Nepal joint field expedition demonstrates three forms of progress: it strengthened scientific evidence base for GLOF risk identification, seismic activity monitoring, and warning indicators. It deepened institutional collaboration among universities, ICIMOD, government agencies, and local stakeholders. It also shows advance made by young women scientists in the most physically demanding parts of mountain research.
The rocks will remain steep, the rivers will continue to surge with fierce white waters, and the risks will keep growing as climate change accelerates. But amid these changing landscapes, another transformation is underway: the people doing science are changing too. When you see more young women standing on unstable slopes with notebooks, sensors, maps, and questions, they are not just measuring hazards; you are witnessing a shift of a traditional field as they redefine who is seen as a scientist, who gets to lead resilience work, and who will carry transboundary cooperation forward.
Women on rocks is becoming women across rivers, women across borders, and women for resilience.
This activity is part of the NSFC-ICIMOD partnership, which is building a practical model for scientific cooperation through the project ‘Understanding landslide-induced multi-hazards for building resilient communities along trans-Himalayan socio-economic corridors,’ led by Professor Chen Ningsheng and his team at Yangtze University, China. Bringing together Chinese scientists, ICIMOD experts, and regional partners, the project examines how multi-hazards affect infrastructure, communities, and cross-border river systems, and shows how shared science can support safer development, stronger preparedness, and trusted regional dialogue.
中尼携手开展跨界河流科考 长江大学助力跨境防灾减灾体系建设
China and Nepal jointly launch cross-border river scientific expedition: Yangtze University contributes to the construction of cross-border disaster prevention and mitigation systems
https://news.yangtzeu.edu.cn/info/1003/37699.htm
我院师生赴尼泊尔科技指导马楠马相迪水电站地质灾害防治工作
Faculty and students from our college travel to Nepal to provide technical guidance on geological disaster prevention and control for the Manang Marshyangdi Hydropower Station
https://dqkx.yangtzeu.edu.cn/info/1053/2938.htm
The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) has been accredited as an intergovernmental organisation for the 2026 United Nations Water Conference. This marks an important milestone and opportunity for ICIMOD to elevate the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) water priorities in global water and sustainable development processes.
The accreditation comes at a critical time and provides ICIMOD a formal entry point into the UN Water Conference process. The HKH is the source of 12 major river systems, supporting over 240 million people in the mountains and close to two billion people downstream. The region’s water systems are under growing pressure from accelerating glacier melt, changing monsoon patterns, floods, droughts, groundwater stress, ecosystem degradation, and rising demand from agriculture, cities, and energy systems.
For ICIMOD, this is not a stand-alone moment. It recognises the decades of work in platforming mountain water issues into regional and global policy spaces through science, cooperation, and evidence-based dialogue. ICIMOD has been working with governments, river basin networks, researchers, civil society, youth, and UN partners to strengthen shared understanding of water and climate risks across the Indus, Ganges, and Yarlung Zangbo-Brahmaputra river systems.
One of the key foundations of this engagement is the HKH Rivers Outcome Document, which was developed through the regional workshop “Water and climate resilience in the Hindu Kush Himalaya: advancing the 2030 agenda through science and cooperation”, held at ICIMOD headquarters in Kathmandu in December 2025.
The document outlines shared priorities for HKH water security, including climate-resilient Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services, resilient livelihoods and energy systems, protection of the cryosphere and river ecosystems, financing for water resilience, and stronger cooperation through science-based basin platforms.
At the 2026 UN Water Conference, ICIMOD will seek to advance three core messages:
1. Mountains must be recognised as core water infrastructure.
2. Water must be addressed together with climate, ecosystem, disaster risk reduction, food system, energy, and source-to-sea river basin management.
3. Regional institutions such as ICIMOD must be recognised as implementation partners for Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 6 and the post-2030 water agenda.
“This accreditation gives us an important opportunity to bring the water realities of the Hindu Kush Himalaya more clearly into global policy discussions,” said Pema Gyamtsho, Director General of ICIMOD. “What happens in the mountains moves through rivers, food systems, energy systems, ecosystems, economies, and communities. ICIMOD will continue working with countries and partners to ensure that mountain water priorities inform global action on sustainable development and climate resilience.”
Faisal Mueen Qamer, Senior River Basin Intervention Manager at ICIMOD, said the accreditation creates a timely opening to connect regional science with global advocacy. “The HKH Rivers Outcome Document gives us a shared regional agenda. The 2026 UN Water Conference provides a global platform to move the agenda forward and present a clear picture of how cryosphere change, river basin cooperation, climate-resilient infrastructure, early warning, WASH, ecosystems, and financing can be linked into the SDG 6 process”.
ICIMOD will use this opportunity to mobilise regional and international partners, strengthen alliances with UN agencies and water institutions, and ensure that the voices, risks, and solutions of the Hindu Kush Himalaya are better reflected in global water policy and implementation.
Did you know that the soil that nourishes our food is simultaneously poisoning the air we breathe? Nitrogen fertilisers, widely applied on agricultural lands across the Indo-Gangetic Plain and Himalayan Foothills (IGP-HF), is among the major hidden pollution sources silently intensifying fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution in the region’s airshed, without leaving any smoke trails or visible signatures.
While vehicular pollution, emissions from brick kilns and crop residue burning dominate headlines, the adverse impact of nitrogen fertiliser emissions remain overlooked. How does this damage occur?
Let us take the case of urea, a nitrogenous fertiliser predominately applied in the Indo Gangetic region due to historical politico-economic reasons such as subsidy regimes, price controls, and entrenched agricultural practices.
Air pollution from urea occurs by a two-step process. Firstly, by hydrolysis, a process in which soil enzymes break down urea into ammonium and carbon dioxide, temporarily raising the alkalinity [2] of the soil; and secondly, by ammonia volatilisation, a process by which the ammonium in the soil shifts into un-ionised ammonia gas (NH₃), given the alkaline condition of the soil from hydrolysis and intensifying under warm weather conditions.
The soil ammonia gas thus released, reacts with atmospheric sulphur dioxide (SO₂) and nitrogen oxides (NOₓ) from other combustion sources, like vehicles and power plants, to form fine particulate matters (PM2.5). The PM2.5 thus formed are known as “secondary inorganic aerosols” (SIAs), as these are not emitted directly from the pollution source but created secondarily through chemical reactions of ammonia and gaseous precursors like SO₂ and NOₓ.
Figure 1: The Nitrogen PM2.5 Chain: How urea applied in rural fields generates secondary PM2.5 that pollutes cities hundreds of kilometres away
STEP 1 - FIELD
Urea applied to crops
More than 50% of applied nitrogen is never absorbed. Excess sits on the soil surface under hot, alkaline conditions.
STEP 2 - AIR
NH3 volatilises
Ammonia gas rises and drifts across state and national borders invisible but now measurable from space via satellite.
STEP 3 - CITY LUNGS
Secondary PM2.5 forms
NH3 + SO2 + NOx forms ammonium sulphate & nitrate: fine particles small enough to lodge deep in human lungs.
Although the formation of SIAs is invisible, their impacts are sweeping and severe. Unlike primary pollutants, SIAs can persist in the atmosphere for days to weeks, exerting regional effects that often outweigh those of long‑lived greenhouse gases. Their most visible consequence is the exacerbation of regional haze across IGP-HF. More insidious are their gradual impacts in altering regional climate patterns by scattering and absorbing solar radiation; and in increasing cardiovascular and pulmonary health risks due to their deep penetration into the human respiratory system.
Yet nitrogen fertiliser emissions hardly find place in either the public or the policy discourse on plummeting air quality in the IGP-HF airshed.
Measured in terms of crop productivity or yield[3] per kilogram of nitrogen applied, nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) is a critical indicator of the agricultural nitrogen balance or imbalance in a region. A high NUE reflects efficient fertiliser use, with most of the applied nitrogen absorbed by crops. Conversely, a low NUE signals inefficiency, with large portions of nitrogen lost through leaching, runoff, ammonia volatilisation, or denitrification.
Several field studies reveal wide variability in NUE across cereal systems in the IGP‑HF, with more than half of applied nitrogen often unabsorbed by crops. One major driver of this inefficiency is the over‑application of nitrogen fertilisers. A practice rooted in the Green Revolution of the mid‑20th century and reinforced over time by the subsidised pricing of urea and the entrenched perception among farmers that “more urea means higher yield.”
Contrary to this perception, the region is now caught in a paradox of diminishing returns from rising nitrogen applications. Instead of sustained productivity gains, over‑application has exposed the inefficiencies of nitrogen use and unleashed mounting environmental ramifications, including plummeting soil health, contamination of groundwater table, ammonia volatilisation, PM2.5 pollution and nitrous oxide emissions in the region.
Figure 2: Where does all the nitrogen go? Nitrogen use inefficiency and air pollution in IGP-HF
The over-application rate is palpably alarming in the Indian states like Punjab and Haryana, where farmers routinely apply twice the NPK (nitrogen: phosphorous: potassium) ratio recommended by national guidelines. In countries like Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan, where comparable national guidelines are lacking, one can assume the extent of overuse to be more severe, being largely left to farmers’ discretion and the market forces.
Estimates from an atmospheric modelling exercise using the International Institute of Systems Analysis’s (IIASA) Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies (GAINS) framework show that annual ambient PM2.5 from nitrogen fertiliser emissions hovers between 1.4 and 3.4 micrograms per cubic metre (μg/m³)across various IGP states, reaching seasonal peaks as high as 7.6 μg/m³ during intensive fertiliser application periods in the crop cycles. These are not trivial numbers in a region where even marginal reductions in particulate matter pollution can prevent thousands of premature deaths each year.
The situation is even more concerning with fertiliser-linked PM2.5 emissions projected to dampen some of the air quality gains expected from reduced crop residue burning by 2035, as stricter enforcement and alternative crop-management technologies begin to take hold.
Figure 3: Emissions from nitrogen fertilisers vs crop residue burning in the IGP-HF: Actual emissions in 2021 vs projected emissions in 2035 based on the GAINS model estimations
Although several national governments across the IGP-HF have invested significantly in air-quality, such as India’s National Clean Air Programme, the ambitions of such programs, as reflected in India’s Clean Air Action Plan targets, remain essentially urban-centric. Rural and peri‑urban landscapes, which are the source sites of fertiliser emissions, continue to fall outside the scope of systematic management.
On the other hand, the nodal agriculture ministries, which control fertiliser policy, have historically had no mandate to worry about urban air quality.
In countries like Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, fertiliser emissions management is even more precarious as the structural blind spots are intrinsically compounded by their less developed national regulatory infrastructures.
While the absence of nitrogen fertiliser governance comes across as a flaw in policy design, it cascades into a glaring implementation gap and is further reinforced by weak or absent enforcement mechanisms.
In addressing this dual gap in policy design and governance, one must remember that efficient nitrogen fertiliser use is not merely an environmental imperative. It is also an equally compelling economic mandate.
When unabsorbed nitrogen fertilisers are lost to air or water, the consequences extend beyond degraded ecosystems and public health. It also means that the millions of dollars spent on fertiliser subsidies across IGP‑HF countries are effectively wasted - draining government exchequers but failing to deliver commensurate economic gains.
Figure 4: The triple burden of nitrogen misgovernance: Soil nitrogen lost in air or water, imposes an environmental burden, triggers associated health consequences, and results in fiscal losses from the wasted fertiliser subsidies
Six practical intervention areas for reducing nitrogen losses and NH₃ emissions.
Smarter incentives for smarter nitrogen use:
Science and technology enabled NUE:
Figure 5: Pathways to nitrogen fertiliser management: the six priority areas of intervention spanning technology, policy, institutions, and monitoring.
Comparison of fertilizer NH₃→PM2.5 and crop residue burning contributions in 2021 and projected 2035 values.
Hover over data points for details
Vision 35-35: Transforming NUE from a technical goal to a clean air mission
The IGP-HF region has set an ambitious clean-air target of reducing PM2.5 concentrations 35 µg/m³ by 2035. This ‘35-by-35’ goal is achievable if the region tackles every major source of particulate pollution, including agricultural ammonia.
What is needed now is a systemic response on multiple fronts, beginning with an airshed approach that treats the IGP-HF airshed as a shared common. Countries can also set up national nitrogen authorities to bring agriculture, environment, and finance ministries into one conversation, and craft fertiliser policies that reward efficiency rather than volume.
The moment is ripe: policy windows are open, state-level clean-air projects are being scaled, satellite monitoring is democratising data, enabling innovation and R&D beyond government actors. What is needed now is stronger political will to connect these dots and transform fertiliser efficiency to a public‑good mission for cleaner skies, healthier communities, and resilient yields.
To know more about the targeted management of agricultural nitrogen in the IGP-HF region, read our technical report here.
[2] Ability of soil to neutralise acids and in effect maintain basic nutrient balance; also called the buffering capacity of soil.
[3] The volume of crop per hectare of land
[4] An inhibitor slows the breakdown of urea in soil, thereby reducing ammonia volatilisation and NUE. NBPT is considered the most effective and commercially successful urease inhibitor globally
[5] Test PoPs in high‑emission agro‑climatic zones to generate field‑level evidence
[6] Implement monitoring systems that apply the 4Rs (right source, right rate, right time, and right place) of nutrient management and track yields and emissions.
[7] Adopt PoPs nationally once evidence shows productivity is maintained and pollution reduced.
[8] Use Custom Hiring Centres and machinery pools to overcome equipment barriers and outreach to women farmers.
For too long, pastoralist women have remained largely invisible in global environmental and development debates, even though they are central to the stewardship of nearly half the Earth’s land surface. Rangelands cover approximately 50 percent of the world’s land area, and pastoralism remains one of humanity’s oldest and most widespread livelihood systems. Yet the women who sustain these landscapes through herding, animal care, food processing, water management, and keepers of traditional ecological knowledge are often excluded from policy decisions that shape their lands and futures.
At the heart of this gathering is a simple but transformative proposition: pastoralist women are not victims of climate change or passive beneficiaries of development. They are knowledge holders, innovators, land stewards, entrepreneurs, and leaders.
Hosted by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) together with the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP) Working Group on Pastoralism and Gender, and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Nepal, the gathering will bring together women from Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe, and Oceania whose lives and livelihoods are rooted in rangelands and mobile pastoralism. Around 90 pastoralist women from across all inhabited continents are expected to participate.
The Gathering builds on a strong legacy that began in 2010, when pastoralist women convened for the first Global Gathering of Women Pastoralists in Mera, Gujarat, India. There, they came up with a collective action agenda known as the Mera Declaration – a landmark document that articulated the rights, aspirations, and demands of pastoralist women globally. Sixteen years later, the Kathmandu gathering, “Mera+16”, seeks to revisit and renew that agenda in the context of accelerating climate change, land fragmentation, biodiversity loss, conflict, and social marginalisation.
The stakes are far higher now. Across East Africa, prolonged droughts are devastating pastoral livelihoods. In Central Asia and the Himalaya, changing snowfall patterns and shrinking alpine pastures are disrupting seasonal migration routes. In Mongolia, desertification and dzud events (severe winters following drought) continue to threaten nomadic herders. In Latin America, pastoral territories are threatened by mining, industrial agriculture, and infrastructure expansion. In addition, pastoralist youth, especially young women, face difficult choices between preserving traditional livelihoods and seeking economic survival elsewhere.
Yet despite these pressures, pastoral systems continue to demonstrate remarkable resilience. Scientific research increasingly confirms what pastoral communities have always known: mobility is not an outdated tradition; it is adaptation. Pastoralism is the most effective livelihood system for managing uncertainty and variability in drylands, mountains, tundra, and other marginal ecosystems, and women are central to that resilience.
Prior to the Kathmandu meeting, regional gatherings have been organised in Africa, South and Central Asia, Europe, and North America. These regional dialogues are crucial because pastoralism is extraordinarily diverse. The realities of Maasai women in Kenya differ from those of yak herders in Nepal, Sámi reindeer herders in northern Europe, Mongolian nomads, or ranching women in North America. Yet, they also share common struggles around land access, climate shocks, invisibility, and exclusion.
The Kathmandu gathering recognises this reality explicitly. Its objectives include facilitating knowledge exchange, strengthening solidarity among pastoralist women’s organisations, sharing successful practices, developing gender-responsive pastoral policies, and building a global advocacy platform. The gathering is designed not as a top-down meeting of experts but as a space led by and for pastoralist women themselves.
For decades, global land policies too often framed pastoralists as environmentally destructive or economically inefficient. This misconception justified sedentarisation (settling in one location) schemes, land privatisation, and exclusionary conservation policies that undermined mobility and weakened rangeland governance. Contemporary ecological science tells a very different story: well-managed pastoral mobility can enhance the health of ecosystems, conserve biodiversity, and improve resilience in highly variable environments.
The Gathering therefore comes at a historic convergence. The United Nations has declared 2026 as the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP), recognising the ecological and cultural importance of pastoral systems worldwide. This global recognition creates a rare political opening to ensure the voices of pastoralist women are at the centre of climate, biodiversity, food systems, and land governance conversations.
The Kathmandu gathering aims to prepare women representatives to deliver these messages globally, including at the 17th session of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification Conference of the Parties (UNCCD COP17), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – 31st Conference of the Parties (UNFCCC COP31), and the Convention on Biological Diversity COP17. Their advocacy will focus on securing land and mobility rights, recognising Indigenous and traditional knowledge, improving access to services and markets, strengthening women’s leadership, and ensuring that climate finance and restoration programmes reach pastoral communities equitably. This is particularly important because global restoration agendas are expanding rapidly. Massive investments are flowing into ecosystem restoration, carbon sequestration (capturing and storing), and climate adaptation initiatives. Without meaningful participation of pastoralist women, such programmes risk reproducing old injustices under new green labels.
Pastoralist women’s participation in UNCCD COP17 discussions in Mongolia could therefore reshape international narratives around rangelands and restoration.
Pastoralist women are often the first to detect ecological change. They observe shifts in grazing quality, livestock health, medicinal plants, water availability, and seasonal patterns. Their knowledge informs herd management, food security, and community adaptation strategies. Yet globally, their contributions remain systematically undervalued.
Women pastoralists frequently lack land rights, education, access to credit, veterinary services, practical advisory and training services, representation in producer organisations, and meaningful participation in governance structures. In many regions, they carry disproportionate labour burdens while having limited influence over policy and resource allocation. Ignoring pastoralist women means sidelining some of the world’s most experienced custodians of fragile ecosystems at a time when climate adaptation is urgently needed.
Women pastoralists can feel isolated within both mainstream feminist spaces and conventional agricultural policy arenas. Building horizontal connections across regions allows women to exchange practical innovations, legal strategies, organising tools, and emotional solidarity. One of the aims of the gathering is to strengthen a global network of pastoralist women and their organisations to support ongoing knowledge sharing, solidarity, and advocacy.
Such networks are already emerging. In East Africa, women-led pastoral associations are increasingly advocating for land rights and peacebuilding. In India, organisations such as Anthra have supported marginalised farmers and livestock-rearing communities to better understand, prepare for, and cope with changing conditions. In Mexico, Mujeres Ganaderas de México (MUGAM) strengthens women’s participation in project development and decision-making processes within the livestock sector. In North America, women ranchers are building networks around regenerative grazing and climate resilience. The Kathmandu gathering will connect these diverse experiences into a shared global conversation.
The Hindu Kush Himalaya is home to some of the world’s highest rangelands and most climate-vulnerable pastoral systems. Yak herders, transhumant communities, and agro pastoralists here are already experiencing rapid ecological and socioeconomic transformation. These challenges are accelerating outmigration of pastoral youth, threatening the intergenerational transfer of transhumance knowledge and undermining the long-term sustainability of pastoral practices that have shaped mountain landscapes and livelihoods for centuries.
Hosting the Global Gathering of Pastoralist Women in Kathmandu offers an important opportunity to elevate the voices and contributions of pastoral women, advocate for greater policy recognition and investment, and engage regional decision-makers on the future of pastoralism in the Himalayas. The leadership shown by the Government of Nepal in advancing the momentum of the IYRP 2026, including the development of a dedicated national action plan, the declaration of National Yak Day, the revision of national rangeland policies, and the preparation of provincial level rangeland management strategies and action plans further reinforces Nepal’s suitability as a regional host for this significant event. As a regional knowledge and intergovernmental organisation working across the Hindu Kush Himalaya, ICIMOD can play a pivotal role in convening stakeholders, fostering regional collaboration, and amplifying the experiences and leadership of pastoral women in shaping resilient mountain futures. ICIMOD’s involvement reflects growing recognition that mountain rangelands and pastoral systems deserve greater attention within global environmental policy.
At a time when global environmental governance often feels disconnected from lived realities, pastoralist women offer something urgently needed: grounded knowledge of how humanity can live with uncertainty while sustaining ecosystems across generations. Their experiences challenge dominant assumptions about development, productivity, and land use. They remind us that mobility can be sustainable, that collective stewardship matters, and that resilience is rooted not only in technology but in relationships between people, animals, landscapes, and cultures. As women delegates gather in Kathmandu and later carry their messages to Mongolia and other global forums, the world will have an opportunity to listen to and learn from them. The question is whether policymakers will finally hear them.
Pastoralist women are no longer asking merely to be included. They are asserting their place as leaders in confronting the intertwined crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, and food insecurity. And perhaps the future of the world’s rangelands, and the communities that depend on them, rests on recognising that they have been leading all along.
On a winter morning in Nepal’s Terai region (southern lowland belt), the air hangs heavy and grey as harvested fields crackle and haze settles over homes and highways. For those living in it, this is more than seasonal haze; it is a public health threat. During crop-harvesting seasons, particularly paddy and wheat, crop residue burning (CRB) significantly worsens air quality across Nepal’s Terai. Satellite observations and ground-level monitoring data show that the open burning of crop residue is a major source of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and black carbon across the Indo-Gangetic Plains, affecting human health, biodiversity, and natural resources.
Despite growing concern, weak policy attention, low public awareness, and the absence of a sustainable market for crop residues allow CRB to continue. This persistence is often misinterpreted as farmer resistance. Preliminary findings from our 2024 assessment suggest that the widespread use of combine harvesters has increased residue burning, particularly of paddy and wheat residues. Similarly, Bajracharya et al. (2021)1 linked increased burning to weak residue supply chains and expanding use of combine harvesters. Nearly 90% of paddy and wheat fields in key production districts of Lumbini Province, such as Nawalparasi, Rupandehi, and Kapilvastu, are now harvested using combined harvesters.
While combine harvesters reduce labour shortages and post-harvest losses, they leave large amounts of loose straw in fields. This straw is labour-intensive and costly to collect, yet unsuitable for livestock feed, leading to large-scale residue burning.
“Burning is not our preference”, says Shanta Khanal Neupane, a women farmers’ representative from Rupandehi district. “It is simply the only choice that works within the time and resources we have.”
Her words echo across the Terai. Burning is less a decision than a constraint. Burning remains the quickest and most convenient way to clear and prepare the field for the next cultivation, while farmers are not fully aware of the serious environmental and health consequences, including soil degradation, which they consider to be improving soil health. Other drivers include the closure of the Bhrikuti Paper Industry in Nawalparasi, the decline in livestock farming, and weak residue markets, all of which have reduced demand for crop residues. The loss of these demands has further reduced viable utilisation of residues, reinforcing open burning as the default option.
Several structural shifts have narrowed farmers’ choices. Agricultural mechanisation has increased residue volumes, while shorter crop turnaround times limit options for labour-intensive manual removal or in-situ management of crop residue due to limited access to appropriate machinery. Traditional uses of residues, particularly as livestock feed, are declining, and local markets for residues remain unorganised or non-existent. Storage constraints, labour shortages, rising wage costs, and limited access to appropriate machinery further constrain farmers’ decision-making, especially during peak agricultural periods.
“Mechanisation has increased, but farmers still lack machinery to manage growing residue volumes”, explains Hasana Shrestha, Environmental Inspector at the Department of Environment, Nepal, working on environmental regulation. Without appropriate machinery like a straw chopper, raker, bale, or other in-situ incorporation machinery, by the time the residue accumulates, time runs out.
“Farmers understand the problem. But managing residues requires capital, time, and equipment that most cannot afford”, adds Ananda Khanal, Executive Director of Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FNCCI).
Women, smallholder farmers, and marginalised communities often shoulder the unpaid burden of residue management, making alternatives harder to adopt. Surya Neupane, Proprietor of Shree Mata Manakamana Traders, Nepal, emphasised, “Women-led households often bear the most burden of residue management, but with the right systems in place, they could also be the main beneficiaries.”
Same thoughts resonate beyond the border. Gurkeerat Sekhon, Founder of Blue Jacket Engineers, in Punjab, India, and an expert in crop residue management, shared a similar perspective: “Women and marginalised people are the most affected, but also the most vocal supporters of the crop residue management campaign.”
Misconceptions also continue to reinforce the routine practice of burning. These misconceptions are particularly persistent among marginalised groups, including tenant farmers, women, and informal agricultural workers, who often face limited access to information, training, and decision-making power. Factors such as labour intensity, time constraints, and restricted control over household resources further reduce farmers' ability to adopt alternative practices.
Jeet Bahadur Chand, Senior Agriculture Engineer at the National Agriculture Modernization Project, Nepal, added, “Many farmers still believe burning improves soil fertility, and without consistent enforcement and awareness raising, there is little to discourage the practice,” pointing to the combined challenge of behaviour, belief, and weak implementation.
Without addressing both knowledge gaps and structural barriers, efforts to reduce burning will remain limited.
Against this backdrop, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), in collaboration with the National Farmers Group Federation (NFGF), Nepal, convened a multi-stakeholder consultation in Lumbini in December 2025. The consultation explored how crop residues could become an economic resource through market-linked approaches.
The consultation was complemented by targeted interviews with local governments, farmer organisations, women’s cooperatives, biomass-using industries, and private entrepreneurs with experience in residue-based energy systems. Across these conversations, a consistent message emerged: burning is a system-level outcome.
“We are expected to raise awareness, but awareness alone does not stop residue burning when farmers have no alternatives”, says Deepak Acharya, Manager at Community Information Network, Nepal, highlighted a structural limitation from the media side: “Without visible solutions or clear policy direction, media coverage remains limited to describing the problem rather than amplifying what works.”
“We are interested in cleaner biomass fuels, including pellets”, Shiva Raj Bhandari from Yasoda Foods Pvt Ltd., Nepal, explained, “But supply is inconsistent, moisture levels vary, and policy signals are unclear. These risks affect investment decisions.”
Farmers, particularly women and smallholders in rural areas, expressed a parallel concern: “If residues are collected on time and there is a clear price, open burning will stop on its own.”
Participants stressed the need for place-based approaches linking practices with infrastructure, industry demand, and inclusive policies. The participants highlighted the importance of crop residue-related policies, clear incentives, and private-sector engagement in crop residue management, and mainstreaming key stakeholders such as farmers, cooperatives, industries, government, and technical partners to scale interventions.
Alternatives to open field burning can deliver both environmental and economic benefits. These include composting, mulching, bioenergy generation (pellets, briquettes, and biomass), animal feed processing, mushroom cultivation, biochar, and industrial raw material use (such as packaging boards).
These approaches can improve soil health, support cleaner energy, and generate income. However, scaling these alternatives requires reliable supply chains, aggregation infrastructure, and industry compatibility.
In the absence of coordinated investment and supportive policy frameworks, these requirements risk becoming barriers rather than enablers. “Any residue-based solution works only when the supply chain works”, says Shiva Raj Bhandari and emphasised, “Without aggregation and quality control, industries will default to fuels they already know”.
The discussions at Lumbini underscored a simple truth: technical solutions fail when they ignore the realities of those who generate and handle residues.
Smallholder women farmers’ groups highlighted the physical and safety risks associated with handling and storing residues near homes. At the same time, cooperatives emphasised the importance of transparent pricing and clear contracts to ensure trust and participation. Farmers, women's groups, marginalised communities, and cooperatives engage in the value chain inclusively under the business model, with active group- or cooperative-led approaches, where actors participate as suppliers and are organised within the value chain for long-term viability.
At the same time, private-sector actors acknowledged their own limitations. “We want to work with farmers, but as an industry we still haven’t been able to offer opportunities at the scale that is needed”, said Amir Khadka from National Vision Multipurpose Agro and Bio Farm, Dang, Nepal, which processes maize stalks, paddy straw, and wheat straw into animal feed, biomass pellets, and compost.
Participants noted that bans without alternatives place unfair pressure on farmers. In contrast, organised value chains linking farms, aggregators, industries, and local governments can sustainably shift incentives.
“We cannot rely on penalties alone”, emphasised Hasana Shrestha “A carrot approach, creating benefits and alternatives, will be far more effective than punishment”.
Sagar Dhakal, Agriculture Extension Director, Ministry of Agriculture, Lumbini Province, Nepal, summarised the shift clearly: “Adding value to residues creates alternatives to burning”.
After an exchange on strategic and effective solutions, local governments expressed interest in supporting the allocation of land for aggregation centres and facilitating coordination among actors.
Based on the consultation outcomes, municipalities such as Palhinandan and Ramgram in Nawalparasi district, Nepal, present promising conditions for piloting integrated crop residue management approaches. These areas combine high availability of residue, proximity to biomass-using industries, active cooperatives, and local government engagement.
Kamala Gurung, Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) Specialist focal for Action Area: Air, ICIMOD, puts it well, “Crop residue management is most effective when farmers, especially women and smallholder farmers, are involved as burning takes place in their own fields. The issue should be addressed not only as an environmental priority, but also as an economic opportunity”.
Reducing CRB requires coordinated action. This includes residue diversity and quantification assessment, baseline monitoring of emissions, mapping of residue supply chains and stakeholders, continued evidence generation on costs and benefits, policy alignment and strengthened institutional capacity.
Amir Khadka cautioned, “It is not that policies do not exist; our biggest issue is that they are not clearly defined, which makes long-term investment risky”.
With coordinated action, Nepal can address crop residue burning while advancing cleaner air, resilient livelihoods, and inclusive bio-based value chains. The solution lies in treating crop residue not as waste, but as a valuable resource.
1 Bajracharya, SB, Mishra A, and Maharjan A, (2021), "Determinants of crop residue burning practice in the Terai region of Nepal." PLoS One 16(7): e0253939. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0253939.9.
This blog is published under ICIMOD’s Himalayan Resilience Enabling Action Programme (HI-REAP) funded by United Kingdom International Development through its flagship Climate Action for a Resilient Asia (CARA) initiative.
As Nim Dorji, a farmer in Bhutan, ran his hands over bushes of Rhododendron, he reminisced about how his family had always used rhododendrons for incense during rituals and had not known until recently that it could be used for other purposes. Being dependent on dairy for income, the yak herding community in Dagala, a gewog (village block) within Thimphu district, western Bhutan were happy to have a new stream of earnings that complemented their lifestyle.
“For us, Balu, powdered rhododendronwas only used in rituals. Now we see them as part of our livelihoods too”, shared Nim.
This is not just a story of one community. It is part of Bhutan’s broader transition toward a bioeconomy; a future where biodiversity is conserved and at the same time nurtured into opportunities, resilience, and innovation.
What started out as a theoretical market assessment of Bhutan’s priority Nature-based Solutions' products revealed something much deeper as I went for on-field coordination for its video documentary. The task seemed straightforward at first – mapping products, enterprises, and opportunities. Being on the field showed me how the products were not just commodities, but stories of how biodiversity could be transformed into sustainable futures, and how communities could be empowered through fair partnerships.
For decades, the National Biodiversity Centre (NBC) has safeguarded Bhutan’s natural heritage and has recognised that conservation cannot succeed if communities are excluded. The Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) regime became the bridge ensuring that when biological resources are used in enterprises, communities benefit fairly, making it both a legal framework and a moral principle. In Bhutan’s context, where rural families are custodians of biodiversity, ABS is particularly important because it connects traditional knowledge with modern enterprise.
NBC’s leadership has been crucial in moving ABS from policy to practice. Community groups were formalised, governance documents translated into Dzongkha, and enterprises mentored to build trust with suppliers. In this way, ABS became not just an agreement but a lived reality. Today, enterprises even use the ABS logo as their unique selling point, signalling to customers that their products are ethically sourced and community driven.
Bhutan’s biodiversity is abundant with rare species and rich ecosystems, but it is also fragile and vulnerable to climate change and unsustainable use. Its future depends on whether people see it not just as something to protect, but as something that creates opportunities. When biodiversity is linked to livelihoods through eco-tourism, organic farming, medicinal plants, or natural product enterprises, communities have stronger reasons to care for it. Examples like lemongrass oil production or community forestry show how protecting nature can also bring income, turning conservation into a shared benefit. Bhutan’s biodiversity can become both a source of resilience and a foundation for development.
For this to really work, benefits must reach the communities on the ground. Without fair benefit-sharing, communities risk being excluded from the value chains built on their own resources. This is where ABS comes in. It connects traditional knowledge with modern enterprise, rural cooperatives with national markets, and local stewardship with global demands for ethical products.
As Tshering Deki, founder of KDY Production reflected, “We want to create businesses that last, not just survive. ABS gives us a way to do that, by building on what Bhutan already has; biodiversity, and community.”
Bhutan’s bioeconomy journey is ultimately shaped by the people behind the products – the farmers, women-led groups, youth entrepreneurs, and community cooperatives who are transforming traditional knowledge into sustainable livelihoods. Across the country, communities are rediscovering the value of local biodiversity, not only as part of their cultural identity, but also as a source of income, resilience, and opportunity. What was once used only for rituals, household remedies, or subsistence is now finding new pathways into wellness products, herbal teas, essential oils, and natural supplements.
These voices from across Bhutan reflect a shared vision – that conservation and economic development can go hand in hand. From highland yak-herding communities harvesting rhododendron sustainably, to women’s groups processing mugwort and black turmeric, local people are becoming active participants in building Bhutan’s emerging bioeconomy. Their experiences demonstrate that when communities are supported through fair partnerships with eight access and benefit sharing contract signed, and enterprise strengthened, biodiversity becomes more than a natural asset – it becomes a pathway toward green, inclusive, and resilient economic development.
Collectively, these enterprises highlight how biodiversity supports communities while strengthening the economy.
Beyond income generation, the initiative has also become a platform for learning. Rural community members are not only supplying resources but are also being guided on why conservation matters, how careful harvesting protects ecosystems, and how sustainable practices secure long-term benefits for their families. These conversations have shifted perspectives. Biodiversity is no longer seen only as something to use, but as something to steward for future generations.
“We understand now that if we take care of nature, nature will take care of us,” Karma, a community member explained.
The tangible outcomes are already visible on the ground:
These outcomes show how ABS, when combined with innovation support, can move from pilot projects to institutionalised benefit flows.
Bhutan’s commitment to bioeconomy and ABS has further been strengthened by ICIMOD’s Himalayan Resilience Enabling Action Programme (HI-REAP). Through the Nature-based Innovation Challenge, enterprises gained a platform to test new ideas, strengthen supply chains, and showcase products that embody the principles of ABS.
Through HI-REAP, these enterprises received incubation support, mentoring, and opportunities to showcase their products regionally. The NbS Innovation Challenge was not just a competition, it was a reaffirmation of Bhutan’s vision that biodiversity can be the foundation of a resilient bioeconomy.
Bhutan’s young population is central to this future. With stronger certification, branding, and market linkages, Bhutan can position ‘Brand Bhutan’ in global wellness markets. The vision is ambitious. By 2030, enterprises like Bio Bhutan aim to grow six-fold, reaching Ngultrum (Nu) 150M in turnover. More importantly, the bioeconomy offers a pathway where livelihoods are created not at the expense of nature, but in harmony with it.
The story of Bhutan’s bioeconomy is one of transformation. Rich biodiversity, once vulnerable to over-extraction, is now being harnessed through ABS contracts, community partnerships, and innovative enterprises. Rural women and youth are at the forefront, turning plants, herbs, and resins into products that carry Bhutan’s ecological heritage into wider markets.
NBC’s leadership shows how policy, innovation, and community voices can come together to build a resilient economy. As Mani Prasad Nirola, Deputy Chief Biodiversity Officer at NBC reflected, “This is how biodiversity becomes livelihood. This is how access becomes equity.”
Bhutan’s experience also holds regional relevance. As mountain nations across the Himalayas seek sustainable pathways, Bhutan’s bioeconomy offers a living example of how biodiversity can be linked to livelihoods, prosperity, and resilience. It is a blueprint for a future where nature and people thrive together.
“If there is a sudden upstream inflow, our villages and fields are inundated in matters of hours. This is how we live during the monsoon,” shared one of the locals residing in North Bihar.
This is a common account of describing a seasonal reality in North Bihar, India a reality shaped far beyond the state. Several rivers flowing through the floodplains in Bihar originates in the mid-hills of Nepal. There, fragile geology, steep slopes, and intense monsoon rainfall generate rapid runoff and heavy sediment loads, resulting surges of water and debris downstream. By the time the river reaches the flat terrain of Bihar, the high-energy flow slows down. The energy dissipates, and the sediments that come from the mountains start to settle across the floodplain. The natural transition of the river from the hills to the plains quietly alters the river’s capacity to carry water and sediment, thereby increasing the likelihood of overbank flooding.
For instance, Sitamarhi district of Bihar is located at the downstream end and is shaped by the river’s reduced flow. It is one of the most flood-prone districts in Bihar. The district experiences flooding almost every year, and in some parts, floodwaters remain stagnant for three to four months.
Land in the area is highly fertile, but prolonged inundation limits agricultural choices. Mustard and winter wheat are primary crops, as they are planted during the non-monsoon fitting within the shorter cropping window between flood periods.
An effective early warning system could significantly reduce risk for these communities. Currently, flood warning often comes from relatives rather than formal systems.
Communities living along the Nepal-India border maintain long-standing family, cultural, and economic ties, despite being separated by a political boundary. These connections serve as informal early warning channels, where people upstream notify relatives downstream about rising river levels. This cultural connection is further strengthened by modern communications, a WhatsApp communication group, facilitated by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), connects upstream communities in Nepal with downstream stakeholders to share flood information. While helpful, these informal mechanisms are not yet a reliable substitute for a formal cross-border early warning system.
Early warning systems exist in parts of the Koshi basin, but alerts do not reach last mile communities early enough to take meaningful action. Residents explained that receiving warnings at least 24 hours in advance would allow them to take necessary measures, including relocating to safer areas. The consequences of delayed warning extend beyond economic losses as floods cut off access to electricity, schools, and health facilities. These disruptions have wider social impacts, particularly for women, children and marginalised communities. Flooded road makes access to health service challenging for pregnant women and young children exposing them to higher risk, school closing pushes children out of schools, sometimes permanently. Landless labourers and marginalised communities generally occupy the lowest-lying lands and take longer to recover, with little financial buffer to fall back on.
What downstream communities like Sitamarhi need are science-based insights into flood impacts and decision support tools. A flood occurrence map for Bihar, developed under ICIMOD and Ocean Policy Research Institute (OPRI)’s Glacier to Ocean (G2O) project, highlights areas frequently affected by flooding, identifies vulnerable areas and supports safer area zonation. The map was then validated in the field across in 12 locations in four districts of Sitamarhi, Muzaffarpur, Jehanabad, and Gaya, Bihar, India.
This is the first phase of output for the project’s work package 2 to assess climate vulnerability and adaptation needs in the mid-stream Ganges River basin. Building on these insights, ICIMOD and local stakeholders will co-develop a risk-informed adaptation strategy focusing on strengthening local level early warning system and anticipatory action by assessing existing systems, identifying gaps in last mile communication, and improving the timely dissemination of flood information.
These decision support tools once ready will help communities in the vulnerable areas build greater resilience to recurring floods. It will give them time to harness the region’s fertile land while also being able to take meaningful action before the floodwater arrives, ultimately breaking the cyclic vulnerability to preparedness and opportunity.
This autumn, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)'s colleagues Bipin Dulal and Sabin Bhattarai travelled to Chengdu, the mountain hub of southwest China, to take part in the two-week iRALL School 2025, an intensive programme centred on field investigation, monitoring and modelling of large landslides.
Moving beyond traditional classroom-based courses, the school immersed participants directly in earthquake-affected mountain landscapes, where they observed firsthand the dynamics of earthquake- induced landslides, river damming and dam-breach driven flash floods. By combining practical field experience with advanced analytical approaches, the programme strengthened ICIMOD’s research capacity to address complex, multi-hazard challenges in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region. Coinciding with the 10th anniversary of the International Research Association on Large Landslides (iRALL), the programme also fostered international collaboration and nurtured the next generation of researchers dedicated to improving community safety and promoting sustainable mountain development.
For ICIMOD, which has long been working in mountain disaster risk reduction (DRR) and resilience, such training represents a vital opportunity to strengthen regional scientific capacity and foster international collaboration.
The HKH is one of the most fragile mountain regions in the world. Because of its unique geology, steep terrain, intense seasonal precipitation, and high seismicity, the region is highly vulnerable to floods (especially flash floods), landslides, droughts, and earthquakes.
Heavy rainfall or seismic activity can trigger large-scale slope failures, while riverbank erosion, unplanned construction, and deforestation further increase vulnerability in the region. For roads, hydropower infrastructure, transboundary rivers, and remote communities in the HKH, a single landslide can alter regional safety in just one hazard event.
For us, the similarity between southwest China and the HKH in topography, climate, and seismic activity makes this an ideal window to understand mountain hazards. The knowledge gained will strengthen early warning, multi-hazard risk assessment, and community resilience in the HKH.
Amid the steep, earthquake-prone valleys of Luding and Beichuan in southwest China, ICIMOD's DRR team observed first-hand the sheer scale, intricate complexity, and lasting impacts of landslides triggered by seismic shocks. It was an eye-opening experience that made the risks facing mountain communities in the HKH region all too real.
The team explored sites such as the Jiajun Landslide – formed during the early stage of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) approximately 19,000 years ago – the Mogangling Landslide, which is believed to have been the source of the 1786 landslide dam that caused around 100,000 fatalities, the Tangjiashan Landslide that created a dam, and the Yangjiagou rock avalanche. Each site told a story of how earthquakes, rainfall, and human activity shape the mountains over time. From river-blocking landslides to long-term slope evolution, the lessons were clear: understanding these processes is critical in developing early warning system (EWS) and adopting mitigation measures for protecting communities and infrastructure.
The training was set in a natural laboratory to study glacial evolution, tectonic movement, geohazards, and ecological processes. We mapped landslides using high-resolution Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and conducted sediment size analysis to understand how mountain river sediments are generated, transported, and accumulated. In addition, we applied advanced geophysical survey techniques – including Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) and ambient noise analysis – Horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio (HVSR), a method used in seismic studies to estimate the natural resonant frequency of the ground which is crucial for understanding site effects in earthquake engineering and HVIP methods –to characterise the internal structure of thick rock avalanche deposits and landslide zones, as well as subsurface geological conditions in landslide-prone areas. These methods provide critical insights into slope stability and aquifer distribution. Seeing these advanced techniques applied in the field made the science tangible and directly support to our studies in understanding the multi-hazard interactions. These advance studies help to establish baseline geomorphological and subsurface conditions and support in identifying changes caused by past disasters. Such studies help to improve our understanding of slope instability and sediment dynamics in the hazard prone landscapes for risk analysis.
Beyond the scientific aspect, the experience highlighted the value of collaboration. There were participants from 14 countries all of them spoke a different language, they were from diverse academic backgrounds, and we had tight schedules. Despite all these challenges we learnt an important lesson: managing mountain hazards requires interdisciplinary thinking, cultural understanding, and teamwork.
“Attending the iRALL School was a valuable experience that complemented ICIMOD’s ongoing work on the development of a Multi-Hazard Risk Assessment (MHRA) framework, specifically focused on understanding cascading interactions between landslides and floods. Field visits to hazard-prone areas in Luding and Beichuan provided first-hand exposure to sites where earthquake-triggered landslides had dammed rivers offering a real-world context to the conceptual processes we have been modelling for the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region. Observing these landscapes and the associated geomorphological evidence helped to understand the importance of complex natural processes such as rock avalanche, damming mechanisms, and downstream sediment dynamics while designing frameworks for landslide-dam-induced floods. A particularly insightful component was learning about the early warning systems developed by the Chinese government in these regions, demonstrating state-of-the-art risk monitoring and emergency management systems that align with the multi-hazard perspective we aim to advance. Beyond technical insights, the iRALL School brought together global experts in landslides, earthquakes, hydrology, and multi-hazard risk assessment, creating a vibrant academic environment for exchanging ideas, exploring innovative methodologies, and initiating future collaborations. This interdisciplinary engagement has inspired new pathways for joint research and strengthened our collective capacity to advance multi-hazard resilience in rapidly changing mountain environments." – Bipin Dulal
“Disasters do not simply end after they occur. Earthquakes immediately destroy infrastructure and trigger landslides, which can dam rivers. When these dams breach, they cause thousands of fatalities. In the long-term, the weakening of geological structures from earthquakes can reactivate landslides, leading to recurring events that continue to affect rivers, communities, and management decisions for years.
Seeing Chinese research teams integrate geology, engineering, remote sensing, and emergency management highlighted practical approaches that the HKH region can adapt. Preserving the evidence of past catastrophes and using natural laboratories to study these events will be key to building sustainable and resilient development.
ICIMOD’s collaboration across the HKH region –including China – offers a powerful opportunity to build safer, stronger, and more resilient mountain communities for generations to come". – Sabin Bhattarai
Applying knowledge in real-world contexts is essential for shaping effective actions. Looking ahead, the insights gained from iRALL School 2025 are already informing ICIMOD’s approach in the HKH.
From advanced monitoring techniques to disaster chain analysis, and from hands-on fieldwork to cross-regional collaboration, this training equipped us with practical, actionable strategies to enhance resilience and safeguard mountain communities. Beyond a purely academic exercise, the experience offered an immersive perspective that integrated science, culture, and real-world challenges, broadening our understanding and strengthening our capacity to address the complex dynamics of mountain hazards across the HKH region.
Standing above the Yangtze River, eastern China overlooking the Three Gorges Dam and witnessing the sheer scale of this great river sustaining millions of lives, one cannot help but pause and ask: What can a river not endure?
Rivers carry everything we give them: our water, our waste, our hopes of growth, and the consequences of our choices. Yet how long can they continue to bear these pressures?
Across the world, river basins are under growing pressure from climate change impacts, rapid urbanisation and increasing demands on water, land, and ecosystems. These pressures do not stop at borders. What happens upstream shapes lives and livelihoods downstream. This is particularly evident in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH), where rivers connect high mountain headwaters with densely populated downstream plains. In this context, managing water through isolated projects or sectoral approaches is no longer sufficient.
Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) is a holistic framework for managing water, land, and related resources to maximise social and economic benefits while safeguarding environmental sustainability. Within a river basin context, IRBM operationalises these core principles, a more context specific approach that responds to the interconnected and dynamic nature of a basin system. This brings science, governance, community perspectives together to manage water holistically.
Aligning upstream and downstream interests, coordinating across sectors, and integrating environmental and social priorities, IRBM supports a more resilient and equitable water management approach. In a region facing increasing flood risk, climate uncertainty, and water scarcity, managing rivers through an integrated approach is not just optional; it is fundamental.
I have been working in water sector for over 15 years, but my two weeks as part of ICIMOD’s IRBM cohort in 2025 significantly reshaped my perspectives on development practices. I started to see rivers not merely as channels conveying water, but as living systems that connect people, ecosystems, and economies across mountains and borders.
As a flood modeller, my focus has always been on analysing water-level data and running models to anticipate flood risks – how high the water will rise, when flooding may occur, and how to minimise impacts. Until recently, I viewed rivers primarily as technical problems to solve. Now, I realise that a river cannot be understood by looking at just a single segment. The course consistently emphasised the need to see beyond numerical inputs – that behind every data point is a human story: a farmer whose field may flood, a family deciding whether to evacuate, or a community striving to rebuild.
This perspective led me to realise that flood modelling tools are not merely scientific outputs, but decision-support instruments. They inform us when and where early warning alerts are needed, guide planners in locating critical infrastructures – such as schools and hospitals and help communities anticipate and prepare for what lies ahead. Ultimately, science must lead to practical action on the ground, where it matters most. The Gender equality, disability and social inclusion (GEDSI) module prompted me to reflect on these critical dimensions, especially in understanding how access to water and the impacts of disasters disproportionately affect women, children, elderly people, persons with disabilities, and marginalised communities. These groups often remain underrepresented in decision-making processes. As these discussions unfolded, they underscored that inclusion is not a peripheral consideration, but a foundational principle of effective IRBM. The governance and water diplomacy module demonstrated that river basin management is shaped not only by hydrology, but also by institutions, legal frameworks, power dynamics, and trust. For downstream countries such as Bangladesh, rivers are integral to the national economy, yet they originate in upstream countries – China, India, and Nepal. This transboundary context necessitates sustained engagement with the upstream countries through dialogue, negotiation and confidence-building. The course further reinforced that effective river basin management relies as much on cooperative relationships and transparent communication as on physical infrastructure. This concept came to life during the exposure visit to China, where theoretical learning and field experience blended seamlessly.
The Chengdu science city planning area illustrates the IRBM concept. Water is not treated as an obstacle to urban growth, but as an opportunity to reimagine and integrate it as an asset. The Xinlong lake functions simultaneously as flood storage, a microclimate regulator, an ecological habitat, and a social space. Rather than a single intervention, it was the coherence and integration between land-use planning, environmental protection, monitoring systems and community access that was most striking.
The Three Gorges Dam is remarkable not only for its immense scale and engineering marvels, but also for the powerful human stories behind its construction. Stories of relocating communities, efforts to preserve cultural heritage, and the broader challenge to balance progress with human values stand at the forefront. This experience reinforced a key IRBM principle: sustainable outcomes require integrating social, environmental and economic dimensions, rather than prioritising one at the expense of others.
I shared this journey with fellow training attendees from across the HKH. Informal exchanges during travel, site visits and discussions often revealed shared challenges despite differing national contexts. These interactions reinforced my understanding that although rivers are divided by administrative boundaries, the communities connected to them face remarkably similar issues of floods, water security and environmental change.
By the end of the learning journey, IRBM no longer felt like a framework confined to policy documents or academic discourse. It had become a way of thinking that connects technical analysis with governance, modelling with inclusion, and infrastructure with ecosystems. The experience strengthened my conviction that integrated, adaptive and participatory approaches are essential for managing river basins under increasing climate uncertainty.
I began the training with the mindset of viewing river management as maps, data points and flood protection structures. I now understand that it is broader: it is about ensuring cities can grow without losing wetlands, that dam projects account for the needs of the communities they displace, and that scientists and decision-makers work closely together.
I returned to my work in Bangladesh as a water management professional with a more grounded perspective. I will continue working with data and models, but I now recognise the people and stories behind them.
Author bio
Md Shahadat Hossain is an Associate Specialist in Institute of Water Modelling (IWM), Bangladesh. His work focuses on integrating numerical simulation, hydro-climatic data analysis and risk-based assessment to support flood early warning systems and climate-resilient water management. He attended ICIMOD’s 2025 annual IRBM training with exposure visit to Yangtze River Basin, China.
The new climate reality of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) is visible across three paradigms: thresholds being crossed as climate change accelerates cascading risks; pronounced inequalities in the adaptive and response capacities of communities across the region; and the growing need for data-driven, impact-based decisions that will determine the success of response measures.
When the World Meteorological Organization released its 2025 report, the world had just experienced its 11th warmest year on record. Global surface temperatures were recorded at 1.44°C above pre-industrial levels, indicating that warming thresholds had effectively been breached and would continue shaping the years ahead.
The World Economic Forum’s 2026 report echoed this concern, identifying extreme weather events, biodiversity and ecosystem collapse, and critical Earth system changes as defining risks of the coming decade.
On the occasion of this year’s World Glacier Day, World Water Day, and World Meteorological Day, we are given an opportunity to reflect on what these changes mean for a quarter of humanity. The Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) in 2026 reflects what these global assessments have long predicted. The region is undergoing rapid changes that will shape how we understand the issues, test and institutionalise solutions, and determine how effectively communities can respond and build back better.
At the core of this challenge lie three parameters: we must continue to monitor cryospheric and river basin changes, including glacier melt, permafrost thaw, and shifting water availability; we must continue to collect data while reflecting the realities of diverse and vulnerable communities; and our governance must remain central to building resilience.
The tipping point begins at the headwaters, in the glaciated regions of our river basins. With over 63,700 glaciers covering nearly 55,782 square kilometres and storing approximately 5,735 cubic kilometres of ice, the HKH holds one of the world’s largest freshwater reserves. This reserve, however, is shrinking rapidly.
ICIMOD’s analyses have consistently highlighted these changes, including through the HI-WISE research initiative, annual snow updates, and technical assessments of upstream disasters such as the Melamchi and Thame floods in Nepal. However, the issue is not confined to a single dimension – it is unfolding across the region, where snow droughts, glacial mass loss, and permafrost degradation are sending clear downstream signals.
These changes require sustained monitoring and robust data collection to fully understand the scale of risks communities face. These risks affect nearly two billion people who depend on the HKH river basins. The headwaters of these systems are critical for irrigation, hydropower, cities, and ecosystems downstream.
Yet the reality remains far from ideal. Only a fraction of glaciers is being monitored, leaving large parts of the Himalaya as blind spots. Without improved monitoring coverage, accelerated changes in water flows and cryospheric risks may go undetected until they manifest as downstream disasters.
These disasters will further deepen existing inequalities – exacerbating poverty, triggering displacement, and disproportionately burdening women and marginalised groups. Changing hazard profiles will amplify these disparities.
ICIMOD’s work across Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Pakistan shows that meteorological data has been crucial in enabling communities to respond early to hazards. But a critical question remains: what is lost when this data is not translated and tailored to the needs of diverse stakeholders?
Greater granularity can ensure that the needs of the most vulnerable are heard and addressed. It also requires improving how data is generated and shared, while accounting for barriers such as language, access, inclusion, and exposure.
While data informs planning, governance is the other essential pillar for a cohesive response. Experience shows that while top-down mandates exist, local realities are ultimately shaped by community priorities.
Inclusive governance will determine how women and other groups respond and make decisions to safeguard their interests. In Nepal, for example, local planning frameworks mandate equitable representation, yet implementation remains challenging. Working with local line agencies, ICIMOD has sought to simplify and institutionalise gender, equity, and social inclusion within local adaptation planning processes.
Finally, do we have the means to support these efforts? As hazards intensify, adaptation will require innovative climate solutions. Yet the financing gap continues to widen. UNEP’s 2025 Adaptation Gap Report estimates that developing countries will need over USD (United States dollar) 300 billion annually by 2035 to meet adaptation needs.
The HKH of 2026 must therefore confront adaptation as a systems challenge. Data must inform preparedness, inclusion must guide planning, and, critically, the region can no longer afford to address these issues in silos.
As the world prepares to mark World Water Day 2026 under the theme of “Where Water Flows: Equality Grows,” global attention is turning to a critical and often overlooked reality: water security and gender equality are deeply interconnected. This connection is at the heart of the United Nations World Water Development Report (WWDR) 2026. The report, titled Water for All People: Equal Rights and Opportunities, brings together evidence, policy insights, and practical solutions to advance more inclusive water systems.
Released annually by UN-Water, the report not only tracks global trends in freshwater and sanitation but also translates policy commitments into actionable pathways: from problem analysis to evidence-informed programme design and implementation. This year’s focus is clear: achieving water security requires addressing structural gender inequalities embedded within water systems.
And the numbers make that urgency impossible to ignore. In 2024, one in four women globally lacked access to safely managed drinking water, while over 40% lacked safe sanitation. Across 53 countries, women and girls collectively spend an estimated 250 million hours every day collecting water. This represents time taken away from education, paid work, and rest. In seven out of 10 households without water, this responsibility falls on women, often requiring long walks through physically and under socially unsafe conditions. These are not just service delivery gaps, they reflect deeper structural inequalities in how water is accessed, distributed, and governed.
This intersection is particularly critical in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH), the “Water Tower of Asia.” This region sustains nearly two billion people, providing freshwater and ecosystem services to 240 million people in the mountains, and about 1.65 billion downstream. Its glaciers, rivers, and springs underpin the region’s agriculture, energy, ecosystems, and livelihoods.
Yet this vital system is under growing stress. Even in a 1.5°C warming scenario, glaciers could lose up to one third of their volume by 2100, and up to two thirds under current emission trends. This will fundamentally alter river flows, increasing flood risks in the short term and leading to water scarcity in the long term: a tipping point often described as “peak water.”
Within this unfolding crisis, women and girls are on the frontlines. As primary managers of household water, they are responsible for securing water for homes, farms, and livestock. Across South Asia, this translates into hours spent collecting water, often under unsafe conditions. In Nepal, women and girls are up to 25 times more likely than men to collect water where access is limited. In urban contexts like Dhaka, long queues, unreliable supply, and poor infrastructure further intensify this burden.
Empowering women in water systems is therefore not only a matter of equity, it is essential for resilience and sustainability.
At its core, water inequality is not just about access, it is about power, participation, and policy. Despite their central role, women remain underrepresented in decision making and water governance. As of 2023, 15% of countries still lacked mechanisms for women’s participation in water-related decision-making. Yet evidence consistently shows that when women are involved - from community systems to formal institutions - outcomes improve, including in productivity, nutrition, and household wellbeing.
Where water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services are inadequate, women and girls bear a disproportionate burden. At the same time, their limited representation in governance, financing, and infrastructure development restricts their access to resources and decision-making power. This exclusion has cascading effects, not only on health and livelihoods, but also on food security and broader development outcomes. Structural barriers further deepen this divide. Insecure land tenure and housing rights often limit access to water services, particularly for women. Even where formal ownership exists, control over water resources is not guaranteed, highlighting the persistent gap between access and agency.
Critical investments, such as gender-responsive WASH in schools and health facilities, including menstrual hygiene management, are essential for dignity, health, and education. But beyond infrastructure, the challenge is systemic: water inequality is also a crisis of representation.
Addressing this requires moving beyond incremental inclusion towards gender-transformative approaches—reforms that tackle root causes, strengthen women’s leadership, and enable meaningful participation in decision-making. Progress, however, continues to be constrained by a lack of sex-disaggregated data in the water sector, limiting our ability to measure inequality and design effective responses.
Encouragingly, across the HKH, practical solutions are already demonstrating what inclusive water management can achieve. Spring-shed restoration initiatives are reviving drying water sources by combining science, local knowledge, and a strong gender and social inclusion lens, restoring year-round water access while strengthening climate resilience. At the systems level, tools that integrate gender and social inclusion into water modelling are helping ensure more equitable and climate-responsive water allocation.
Capacity-building efforts in integrated river basin management are equipping professionals with the skills to address water challenges through holistic and inclusive governance. Meanwhile, initiatives like the Women on Ice expedition are reshaping leadership in cryosphere science by empowering early-career women with field experience, technical skills, and regional networks.
Together, these efforts signal a critical shift: from addressing women as beneficiaries to recognising them as leaders in building sustainable water futures.
This shift is not just theoretical; it is already transforming lives. For Khanduom, an asparagus farmer in Bhutan, access to water changed everything. With limited irrigation, her one-acre farm struggled despite efforts to store rainwater. The introduction of solar lift irrigation marked a turning point. Within a year, her income more than doubled. Today, she is earning steadily and building resilience. Her story reflects a simple but powerful truth: when women gain access to water, they gain opportunity. When they gain agency, they drive transformation.
Recognising the need for systemic change, global efforts are increasingly placing gender equality at the centre of water governance. Through its World Water Assessment Programme, UNESCO is advancing tools, capacity building, and partnerships to support gender-responsive water management worldwide.
But the message of WWDR 2026 is clear: removing barriers to women’s access, leadership, and decision-making is not just a matter of justice, it is fundamental to the effectiveness and sustainability of water systems. Because when women are excluded, water systems fall short.
And when inclusion is prioritised, solutions become stronger, more equitable, and more resilient.
The challenge of water management in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) is fundamentally a systems issue, further aggravated by the impacts of climate change. Across the region, rivers face multiple pressures from climate, urban development trajectories, and institutional governance. These changes transcend across administrative boundaries and sectoral mandates, underscoring the need for an integrated basin-scale approach to water management.
Addressing this multifaceted challenge requires an Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM), which provides a holistic framework that carefully considers every element within a basin: from resources to users. However, operationalising such an approach across the region remains challenging, particularly due to limited technical capacity, institutional fragmentation, and uneven access to applied learning opportunities.
To address these challenges, ICIMOD’s annual professional training course on Multiscale IRBM in the HKH has progressively evolved from a predominantly in-person programme into a blended learning model. The programme now integrates online instruction with structured field exposure visits to key river basin management contexts across its regional member countries. The 2025 edition marked a significant milestone, with the formal integration of a massive open online course (MOOC) alongside a regional exposure visit to the Three Gorges Dam and Gezhouba dams in the Yangtze River Basin, China.
A defining strength of the training course has been the diversity of its participants. Over the past six years, it has engaged professionals from ICIMOD’s seven out of eight regional member countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Nepal, and Pakistan), reflecting the transboundary nature of river basin challenges in the HKH. Participants represented a wide spectrum of institutions, including government ministries, hydrology and meteorological departments, energy authorities, river basin organisations, academic institutions, and civil society organisations.
Since 2019, this annual training has continued to play a crucial role in breaking down traditional sectoral silos within river basin management. By bringing together professionals from diverse disciplines, the program fosters cross-sectoral understanding and collaboration. Participants develop a systems perspective, gaining insights into how upstream cryosphere dynamics influence downstream water availability, and how cryosphere science can inform risk management planning and basin-scale water governance.
Interactive modules, case studies, and scenario-based exercises encourage teams to work jointly on real-world challenges, such as glacier lake outburst floods, springshed management, integrated flood management, drought management, Nature-based Solutions, and many more. This collaborative approach helps participants appreciate the interdependencies between their respective domains, allowing for more coordinated strategies in early warning systems, infrastructure planning, and climate adaptation measures.
The course continues to be highly sought after for the region’s water professionals, with the number of applicants increasing every year. In 2025, nearly 200 participants completed the online course. Selected participants were chosen for the onsite learning component, offering IRBM modules through a MOOC. This ensures professionals across the region can access the fundamental principles of holistic basin management.
Designed for policymakers, practitioners, and early- to mid-career professionals, the MOOC provides a strong foundation in river basin planning by integrating core Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) principles with an IRBM approach emphasising learning the biophysical processes, climate and hazard dynamics, governance and institutional frameworks, and socio-economic dimensions. Delivered through modular online content combining expert lectures, regional case studies, interactive exercises, and peer exchange, the course links science, policy, and practice while highlighting emerging priorities such as water diplomacy, leadership, youth engagement, and gender equality and social inclusion (GESI). The MOOC also serves as a common entry point to ICIMOD’s broader multiscale IRBM capacity development programme.
The onsite learning component of the IRBM course provides participants with the opportunity to translate theoretical concepts into practice by applying multiscale thinking in real river basin settings. Six top-performing attendees from the 200 who completed the online course in 2025 were selected for the field exposure visits to the Yangtze River Basin. Visits to various water infrastructure sites in Chengdu, Chongqing, and Wuhan provided a comprehensive overview of basin-scale planning and management, including watershed and hazard modelling, urban ecological restoration initiatives, and approaches to biodiversity-sensitive hydropower development. This includes a visit to the Three Gorges Dam and the Gezhouba Dam, which offer concrete examples of how large-scale infrastructure is planned and managed within a complex governance, institutional, social and environmental context.
The phased learning components of combining online instruction with field exposure strengthened participants’ ability to translate analytical frameworks into informed, context-specific decision making at the river basin scale, while also being capacitated to adapt and integrate holistic practice within their own country contexts. This reinforces both the scale and depth of IRBM capacity development.
Feedback and tracer assessments are an integral part of the training. Findings from the survey for the 2025 cohort indicate that participants gained significantly greater confidence in applying IRBM concepts within institutional and policy settings. Participants brought real-world governance challenges into discussions, including fragmented mandates, limited availability and accessibility of basin data, and coordination gaps across sectors and administrative scales.
These assessments reveal early uptake of training insights in national planning. Bhutan’s Department of Water is actively considering integration of hydrological planning, climate resilience, and risk reduction strategies into the upcoming river basin management plan.
With over 1,000 views and nearly 500 downloads, ICIMOD’s IRBM resource book is referenced by participants for applying IRBM principles in policy development, planning, and basin-level dialogue. The training is helping bridge the gap between theoretical frameworks and actionable strategies.
The figure below showcases past participants’ evaluation of the course in strengthening their ability to initiate dialogue at the basin level and promote integrated approaches in planning, policy development, and project design. The module on youth leadership and GESI perspectives emphasises inclusive governance as essential for climate-resilient and socially equitable river basin management.
Collectively, these outcomes provide strong early uptake and regional signals. Knowledge and skills gained from the training are beginning to influence practical decision making, foster collaborative approaches across sectors, and promote more integrated and resilient river basin governance across the HKH region.
While the outcomes are encouraging, significant work remains before IRBM is fully embedded across the HKH river networks. Sustaining IRBM practice continues to be a challenge due to limited institutional capacity, frequent staff turnover across the region, and limited mandates for water-related governing bodies, all of which affect long-term uptake within agencies. While the MOOC has broadened access, maintaining participant engagement in online formats requires continuous attention to interactive methods, structured pacing, and institutional support mechanisms.
However, the cumulative impact of the programme is becoming evident. Over the past six years, ICIMOD’s IRBM capacity-building initiatives have reached more than 80 professionals through in-depth training. This expanding network of IRBM-informed practitioners provides an important foundation for peer learning, regional dialogue, and longer-term institutional change.
The 2025 blended learning model demonstrates the potential of combining scalable digital learning with targeted field-based experience to strengthen IRBM capacity across diverse institutional and basin contexts. Moving forward, priorities include making IRBM more accessible to youth and early-career professionals, strengthening mentorship and alumni networks, and embedding applied learning within participants’ home institutions.
Sustained efforts will be required to support regional member countries in integrating IRBM into national planning processes, expanding access to modelling tools and data platforms, and facilitating basin-level dialogue where ICIMOD can play a convening and knowledge-sharing role. As climate-driven pressures on water systems intensify across the Hindu Kush Himalaya, blended, inclusive, and practice-oriented capacity development will remain essential for advancing resilient and equitable river basin governance.
Online e-course on springshed management: https://learn.icimod.org
Pastoralism is a perfect example of adaptation to highly variable environments. In the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH), mountain transhumance or agropastoralism is not only a way of life and a source of livelihood but also plays an important role in shaping and maintaining landscapes and biodiversity, particularly in high elevation areas. Pastoral mobility (transhumance) is the seasonal, rules-based movement of herders and livestock between grazing areas to balance pasture recovery, water access, and climate risk. Mobility is central to its resilience and sustainability. This traditional practice underpins biodiversity conservation and strengthens water and climate resilience. At present, pastoral mobility faces intensifying pressures ranging from land fragmentation, infrastructure expansion, protected area formation, border restrictions, climate extremes and shifting markets. Yet the importance of pastoral mobility and the challenges it faces remain poorly understood – and often misunderstood.
In this blog, we address five common misconceptions to explain why mobility is not “backward” or “random” but a smart system that deserves better policy and planning support.
To a distant observer, high-altitude rangelands of the HKH appear as vast wilderness, endless expanses of rock, alpine meadows and shrubberies, seemingly abandoned by time, with little to no life. But if we look closer, this illusion shatters. The landscape is not empty; it is as vibrant as any forested landscape, shaped and conserved by some of the most sophisticated and dynamic land use systems on Earth (Figure 1).
It is pastoral communities’ intentional adaptation to mountain topography and seasonality that allows communities to thrive where sedentary agriculture fails. By moving in sync with the pulse of the seasons, pastoralists ensure the survival of both their herds and the fragile ecosystems they call home. As pastoralists move their yaks, sheep, and goats through the mountains, hidden ecosystem interactions play out – snow leopards, bears, wild dogs and wolves trail the herds, maintaining the ancient balance between predator and prey.
The landscape and biological diversity are staggering. In the Tibetan plateau alone, 26 altitudinal belts, 28 spectra of altitudinal belts, 12,000 species of vascular plants, 5,000 species of epiphytes, 210 species of mammals, and 532 species of birds have been recorded. Species and communities are unevenly distributed and, even if we don’t immediately see them, they are present. Genetic and ecological studies report that the Plateau supports over 14 million domestic yak. They are distributed across Tibet, Qinghai, and neighbouring highland pastoral regions, where they are raised for milk, meat, fibre, and draught power.
In most sedentary societies, wealth, usually in the form of land, concentrates in the hands of elites. History shows that pastoralist societies were no different: for example, in Bhutan's high-altitude rangelands, historical inequity was created when wealthy individuals could afford to purchase rangeland rights in the 1960s while actual herders could not, leading to persistent absentee landlordism.
However, current data from Bhutan on pastoralism suggests a remarkably different social architecture among yak herders. Statistical analysis of district level yak herding household counts and yak populations reveals a "strong linear correlation" (Figure 2). This isn't just a dry statistic; it is evidence of a social levelling mechanism. Here, the data shows that the primary assets of the economy, the animals, are not hoarded by a few "land barons" while others struggle. Instead, the pastoral system operates on a structure where livestock wealth is distributed relatively evenly. This equitable distribution prevents the stark class divides common in sedentary agricultural systems, making the entire community more resilient to shocks.
While we hunt for high-tech climate fixes, an ancient "Nature-based Solution" (NbS) is the default land use in the mountains. Transhumance: the seasonal cycling of grazing areas is a masterclass in ecological timing (Figure 3).
In many high-altitude rangelands, productivity depends on rest and rotation periods of grazing, followed by recovery. Critics often mistakenly argue that moving large herds is inherently damaging. But, many studies have shown that grazing by livestock is associated with increased plant diversity and greater productivity compared to areas without grazing. This agro-pastoral mobility is the primary engine of mountain sustainability. In the HKH, pastoralism is not a fading relic; it is a sophisticated socio-ecological system that provides the blueprint for resilience in a warming world – and in areas on the frontlines of this change, due to elevation dependent warming. Pastoral mobility is a proven, high-functioning nature-based solution. This does not mean all grazing is beneficial everywhere; outcomes depend on stocking rates, timing, pasture condition, and governance.
By practicing transhumance, the seasonal rotation between summer and winter pastures, herders prevent soil exhaustion and biodiversity loss that accompany overgrazing. This allows for critical "vegetation recovery," ensuring that when a herd returns to the grazing parcel the following year, the land has had time to breathe and rebuild its nutrient cycle. This practice aligns with the intermediate disturbance hypothesis in ecology, which suggests that moderate, periodic grazing – neither too intense nor absent – maintains the highest biodiversity by preventing both competitive exclusion by dominant plant species and degradation from overuse. Think of it like pruning a garden: moderate grazing stimulates new growth and prevents a few aggressive plant species from taking over the entire pasture. As one campaign message for the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists 2026 shared online puts it: “Pastoral mobility isn't just tradition; it's the lifeline of sustainable rangelands and thriving pastoral economies.”
There is a huge misconception that shared grazing lands are “open access” areas where anyone can graze anything without restraint. This “tragedy of the commons” narrative is frequently used to justify top-down, restrictive land use policies. The myth persists because the absence of fences is mistaken for the absence of rules.
But the reality is that these are highly sophisticated governance systems based on centuries of reciprocity and negotiation. Customary institutions coordinate timing, resolve conflicts, and ensure the land is not overused. When modern law ignores these customary institutions, it does more than just erase culture. It can physically degrade the land. As another IYRP message summarises: “Pastoral commons are not open access. They are carefully governed through reciprocity, negotiation, and efficient collective action."
In Nepal, the Tamang of Gatlang practice a customary governance system known as Choko, which manages social, cultural, religious, and agropastoralism affairs in the community. The Choko, normally a male leader, serves as the community governor and is selected annually based on leadership competency and community consensus. This leader holds the highest authority within the community to enforce customary laws, resolve conflicts, and regulate the seasonal movement of herds to ensure the sustainable and equitable use of pasture resources for all members.
In India, specifically within Ladakh, the Goba system functions as the primary governance structure for high-altitude pastures. The Goba, or village headman, coordinates seasonal migrations and appoints monitors known as Lorapas to track livestock movements; this prevents overgrazing of village-adjacent lands and minimizes conflicts between pastoralists and sedentary farmers. In Bhutan, pastoralism revolves around Tsamdro management, a traditional system of grazing rights documented through historical royal edicts (Kashos). Herders practice a strict transhumance cycle, moving yaks between alpine and lower-altitude pastures to exploit seasonal forage efficiently while maintaining the ecological balance of the fragile mountain landscape.
In Pakistan, the Jirga (council of elders) remains the central institution for managing communal rangelands in places like Chitral. These councils enforce rotational grazing schedules and settle territorial disputes between migratory herders and local settlers, using traditional ecological knowledge to govern natural resources without formal state intervention.
It is a bitter irony: the HKH is known as the “water tower of Asia”, yet for the pastoralists who live there, the reality is different. Traditional water sources have either dried up or are rapidly receding. Beyond climate stress, herders face heightened water stress, attributed to reduced precipitation and a delay of 15–20 days in the onset of the monsoon.
The responses from herders in Bhutan paint a startling picture of water insecurity on the “roof of the world”. According to an ICIMOD survey of 1,784 grazing areas in Bhutan (2024), 82% (1,474) of herders reported having "water-related issues” as one of the major concerns in the grazing areas they that have been using traditionally.
The situation in the Indian Himalaya is similar. According to the 2017–2018 census by the Ministry of Jal Shakti, Government of India, around 23% of water bodies in the state of Jammu and Kashmir have dried up and are considered beyond restoration. In Nepal too, yak herders from Panchthar in the east to Jumla in the west, report severe seasonal water stress.
Therefore, in the mountains, from where our mighty Asian rivers originate, pastoralists face water scarcity. To bridge this gap, policy interventions must pivot toward decentralised, climate-resilient water infrastructure and high-altitude spring monitoring and restoration that specifically prioritise water access for pastoralists. Investing in these "at-the-source" solutions such as restored water points and negotiated rights is essential to ensuring that the very communities safeguarding the headwaters of the mighty Asian rivers are not the first to go thirsty.
As we mark 2026 as the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP), it is important that we confront these misconceptions about mobile pastoralism.
Pastoralism is the heartbeat of the high mountains, and it is mobility that keeps this heartbeat strong. To sustain this vital rhythm, governments and regional institutions need to reexamine restrictive land-use policies and enable the move towards collaborative frameworks that protect the mobility, land, and water rights of these mountain guardians – so that the rangelands remain vibrant and resilient for generations to come.
The first dedicated air quality dashboard for Bhutan (AQ Watch – Bhutan) was launched on 30 October 2025 in Thimpu, Bhutan. The dashboard was handed over to the Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC), Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources (MoENR), Royal Government of Bhutan by ICIMOD on the same day.
The AQ Watch – Bhutan developed by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in collaboration with the Government Technology Agency (GovTech), Bhutan was jointly launched by Sonam Tashi, Director, DECC, and Ashish Tiwari, Action Area Lead, Air ICIMOD.
Following the successful completion of User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and Quality Assurance (QA) processes, AQ Watch – Bhutan has been made live, enabling real-time visualisation and analysis of air quality across the country.
The dashboard provides a unified interface to monitor recent and archived air quality datasets from multiple sources, including in-situ air quality observation stations, satellite products, reanalysis datasets and air quality forecasts.
Key parameters include:
PM2.5 (fine particles) and PM10 (coarse particles), comprising tiny solid or liquid particles suspended in the air,
Ozone (O₃): a harmful gas on the ground level mainly formed when sunlight reacts with exhaust gases from vehicles and industries,
Oxides of Nitrogen (NOx): gaseous pollutant mainly emitted from vehicles and industries,
Sulphur Dioxide (SO₂): emitted mainly from industrial processes and the burning of sulphur-containing fuels such as coal,
Carbon Monoxide (CO): generated by incomplete combustion of fuel,
Black Carbon (BC): fine soot particles released from incomplete combustion of fuels and biomass
The interactive map on the dashboard allows users to select any region on the map and analyse the pollution trend over the time. It also allows users to select the multiple pollutants in the same region and same pollutant in different regions. This helps researchers, analysts and policy makers to make informed decisions on air pollution management. The AQ Watch – Bhutan includes an Archive section that allows users to view air quality data from the past seven days, and a Forecast tab that displays expected air quality levels for the next 48 hours, helping the user stay informed about pollution levels.
Speaking at the event, Sonam Tashi, Director, DECC, highlighted the role of reliable and accessible data. “This AQ Watch – Bhutan plays a pivotal role in ensuring that reliable air quality data are accessible to guide informed decisions to improve air quality. Regional cooperation and technology driven solutions are critical in addressing the intricate challenges posed by air pollution".
Ashish Tiwari, Action Area Lead, Air, ICIMOD, emphasised the policy relevance of the initiative. “The successful launch of AQ Watch – Bhutan will derive evidence-based policies and bridge the ambient air quality monitoring data gaps in Bhutan to understand the population exposure, hotspots and emission sources which help in designing actionable plans”.
This work has been carried out with support from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), UK under the Himalayan Resilience Enabling Action Programme (HI-REAP) programme.
This dashboard is a key outcome of ICIMOD's broader regional initiative to enhance air quality data sharing and visualisation across the Indo-Gangetic Plain and Himalayan Foothills (IGP-HF) and the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) regions.
In the future, the platform is expected to evolve through potential enhancements, including expanded analytical capabilities and exploration of Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) validation through ground-based observations and satellite cross comparison to further enhance data reliability and decision support.
The Bhutan-specific module represents a significant milestone in this effort, designed to support national-level air quality monitoring, data-driven decision-making, and public awareness.
The industrial sector in Bhutan has played a significant role in the country's economic development. Bhutan's industrial sector has been offering numerous benefits – employment generation, economic diversification, advancement of technology, and improving the living standards of people.
The Industry Census of Bhutan 2024 (p 20) has highlighted that the industries of all sizes collectively contributed 49.96 percent – or Ngultrum (Nu) 124.69 billion to the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023.
Despite the industrial growth playing an important role in Bhutan's economic growth, it has also posed a threat to air quality. It has become a source of particulate matter, gaseous emissions, particularly from cement, ferroalloy, and small-scale manufacturing units, contributing to pollution which could impact public health if not managed properly.
Realising the need to improve its air quality Bhutan has taken a step forward in its National Clean Air Action Plan (NCAAP) with the successful completion of the industrial sector consultation held on 29 October 2025. The Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC), Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, Bhutan in collaboration with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) had organised the industry sector consultation.
This consultation gathered policy planners, scientists, experts, academia, industrial stakeholders and innovators to share insights on the status and challenges of industrial emissions.
The consultation focused on advancing cleaner production practices, enhancing energy efficiency, and strengthening emission control mechanisms across key industries, in line with Bhutan’s clean air and climate ambitions.
Regional experts shared their insights on industrial air pollution control and best practices. Exploring dust management, energy use, and cleaner production techniques in small-scale manufacturing industries, including Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), and understanding the social dimensions of air quality management in the industry sector were some of the key highlights of the consultation. In addition, there were interactive discussions on pathways to low-emission and energy-efficient production in cement and ferroalloy industries. The event sought to identify practical pathways for reducing environmental impact while sustaining economics progress.
“This consultation marks an important milestone in aligning industrial growth with environmental responsibility,” said Sonam Tashi, Director, Department of Environment and Climate Change, Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources. “By working closely with industries and promoting cleaner technologies, we aim to ensure that economic progress does not come at the cost of air quality or public health,” he added.
The concept of NCAAP was formally launched at an inception workshop on 15 September 2025, in Thimphu, bringing together diverse stakeholders to establish a shared goal of improving air quality across the country. The NCAAP is being jointly developed by DECC and ICIMOD.
ICIMOD’s Air Lead, Ashish Tiwari said “Across South Asia, air pollution threatens the health of billions, undermines economies, and damages ecosystems. We commend the Royal Government of Bhutan for its visionary approach to planned air quality management – leading the region in clean air initiatives while remaining carbon neutral.”
This event also laid the groundwork for the development of an industrial emission inventory, which will form a scientific basis for policy interventions.
“Engagement like this help us understand how we can adopt cleaner production methods without comprising competitiveness. With clear policy guidance and access to innovative technology, industries can become active partner in country’s clean air journey,” said Singay Namgay Dorji, President, Association of Bhutanese Industries.
This initiative is part of Bhutan’s broader efforts to develop a robust National Clean Air Action Plan, which aims to improve air quality, protect public health, and promote sustainable economic development through evidence-based and collaborative approaches.
ICIMOD is working with its Regional Member Countries in the Indo-Gangetic Plain and Himalayan Foothills (IGP-HF) to bridge disparities in clean air actions by supporting robust national strategies, evidence-based policies, and actionable delivery plans.
Within this regional effort, ICIMOD is supporting Bhutan in its journey to address air pollution challenges with this work being carried out with the support of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), UK under the Himalayan Resilience Enabling Action Programme (HI-REAP).