High mountain watershed management

1. No. 12, High Mountain
Watershed Management
and
International Center for Integrated
Mountain Development (ICIMOD)
Kathmandu, Nepal
Water and Environment
Course, June 2013
Clarence Maloney
Independent consultant
in organization for water
resources management
In South Asian countries

2. Himalayas are young mountains
• The Himalayas, Pamirs, and Hindu Kush are young
mountains only a few million years old
• They rose up because the Indian Continental Plate
is pushing north against the Eurasian Plate, and
going under it, and still moving north 2-4 cm a year
• They are still growing; last growth spurt was
600,000 years ago
• Afghanistan is also affected by the Arabian Plate
also pushing northeast

3. Indian Plate
moved 5000 km
northward, left
Madagascar
behind, and
continues, raising
Himalayas, Tibet
Plateau, and
Hindu Kush

4. Himalayan glaciers
• Himalayas have 18,000 glaciers
• Glaciers in eastern Himalayas melting much, and earlier
in spring season
• But snow level in Karakorum and Pamir more stable
because of westerly winds
• Run-off from melting glaciers and ice caps is raising sea
levels by 1.2 centimeters a year
• Indian government concerned about Ganga plains;
recently established National Institute of Himalayan
Glaciology in Dehra Dun
• The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)—India’s
leading environment institute— is making detailed
continuous study of a few selected glaciers

5. Himalayan Glaciers:
Climate Change,
Water Resources,
and Water Security
Useful new book
by US Academy of
Sciences, 2013

6. Glaciers in Afghanistan (mostly 1970s data)
(Glaciers of Afghanistan, John Schroder, USGS, nd)
• Over 3000 small glaciers, area 2700 km2
• Glaciers mostly small and have been somewhat
retreating, 14% for 1 degree warming
• Glaciers in higher cold northeast don’t have much
recent change; tend to be debris-covered
• Moraine walls tend to reduce flash flood hazard
• Some new melt-water lakes may burst
• Snow lines in Aug 1975 4800-5420m, av. 5100m
• By some estimates water from snow melt already
decreased 10%

7. Wakhan Glaciers and Water (www.glims.org)
• Changes predicted for Hindu Kush glaciers:
temperature increase of 0.50C and precipitation
decrease of 12–15%, producing reduction of glacier
melt water 13–21%
http://www.glims.org/glacierdata/data (Lebedeva
(1997)
• Precipitation in the Wakhan is <100 mm in lower
valleys and 300 to <500 mm in the Wakhan Pamir, but
over 50% of it in March-April, and 10–35% in May/June
• Summer monsoon from India that gets to the higher
mountains of Nuristan and sometimes the central
Hindu Kush, rarely ever reaches the Wakhan

8. Wakhan Rift draining into Amu Darya
Photo by Theodore Kaye

9. Snow on Hindu Kush 25 Feb. 2005
Snow is shown red; barren desert blue-green; plant-covered green;
clouds are orange or white.
At this time
intense cold
and snow
caused 500
deaths from
avalanches,
exposure,
and illness
(ImageMODIS
Rapid Res-
ponse Team)

10. Temp. increase Tibet Plateau (ICIMOD)

11. Climate Change: what will we have to adapt to?
We will face long term and short term challenges
Long term = (seasonal) droughts + floods
Short term = water hazards (flash floods) (ICIMOD)

13. International Centre for Integrated
Mountain Development (ICIMOD)
• ICIMOD is a regional intergovernmental research
and sharing center serving the eight member
countries of Hindu Kush- Himalayas:
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Mya
nmar, Nepal, and Pakistan, based in Kathmandu,
Nepal
• It’s Strategic Framework has 4 thematic areas
--Livelihoods
--Ecosystems Services
--Water and Air
--Geospacial Solutions

14. ICIMOD working regions

15. ICIMOD book on integrated watershed
management and climate change

16. ICIMOD active for
Asia’s 8 Major Asia River Basins
• Indus in Pakistan
• Ganga in India
• Brahmaputra in India and Bangladesh
• Irrawaddy in Burma/Myanmar
• Salween in China, Thailand, and Burma
• Mekong in Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Viet Nam
• Yangtze in South China
• Yellow River in North China

18. Tasks of ICIMOD
•Research-- as best conservation/use of water
•Documentation-- best practices (local knowledge)
•Networks-- knowledge sharing and collaborative
watershed management programs and training, as
for institutions, NGOs, communities
•Technologies package approach– promotion and
adaptation; low cost technologies
•IWRM as adaptation to Climate Change
•Participatory and adaptive management of high
altitude watersheds with links to livelihoods (equity
and marginalized groups, income, migration, etc)

19. ICIMOD library. Kathmandu, Nepal

20. Features of higher elevations
•Hindu Kush and part of Pamirs have winter snow “Alpine
Regime”, and Tibet Plateau has “Cold-Arid Regime”
•Rest of Himalayas have “Monsoon Regime with Winter
Snow Regime”
•Precipitation on east mostly by monsoon in summer; in west
mid-latitude westerly winds in winter with Mediterranean
moisture; Sutlej Valley is roughly the dividing line
•Glaciers increasingly shrinking in east and central Himalayas
but in Hindu Kush less so
•Warming is more in higher elevations
•Precipitation now more rain instead of snow, so less duration
of river flow, more flood and droughts

21. Hindu Kush-Pamir-Karakoram-Himalaya
Region
Landscapes in the Himalayan region are a complex
mosaic of habitats for all life forms and a diversity of
livelihoods:
• Barren mountain faces, glaciers, alpine meadow
and wetlands at high altitudes
• Human settlement, farmland, home gardens, lakes,
and rangeland at medium altitudes
• Paddy and wetlands at lower altitudes

22. Snow-Water Equivalent Model
(Based on Utah Energy Balance snowmelt
model developed by Tarboton et al., 1995)
Daily snow-water equi-
valent maps show:
• Distribution of modeled
water content of
snow pack
• Snow cover extent
• Indications of snow
depth
• Water for irrigation
when snow melts.
For more information about
model, see the FEWS NET
Afghanistan website:
http://edcintl.cr.usgs.gov/Afgh
an/readme/SWE_Readme_04
11v1.doc

23. Data on snow volume above dams

24. Hindu Kush, Pamir, Karkoram (ICIMOD)
21 million people depend on Amu Darya water

25. Irrigation from Emend R, Takhar Province; from 2000 to 2011,
3 km glacier feeding it retreated 100 m.

26. Challenges In high altitude watersheds-
Tibet and Afghanistan (ICIMOD) (1)
--Low rainfall
--Low temperature and
severe winter
--Rugged and fragile
terrain
--High soil erosion
from wind & water
--Short growing seasons
and limited agricultural
land

27. Challenges in high altitude (2)
• Severe natural resources degradation
• Low agriculture productivity, fodder, fuel, timber
• High levels of poverty
• Sediment in irrigation and drinking water
• Flash floods
• Marginalized population- limited or no access to:
--Basic government
--Social and technical services
--Health care
--Education
--Agricultural extension services

28. Mountain Development
Resource Book for
Afghanistan (ICIMOD).
Chapter 3: Watershed
Management
Co-management- for range-
land and pastoral livelihoods is
necessary in heavily-populated
countries
Government, communities, and
stakeholders negotiate, plan,
and carry out strategies to
manage rangeland through
equitable processes and hands-
on learning

29. Rangeland in Afghanistan
I

30. Afghanistan MAIL responsible to
manage watershed lands
• MAIL has responsibility to manage watershed lands,
under Land Law of 2003 and Water Law of 2009
• MAIL’s new policies are to encourage community-
based management of natural resources
Another good source High Mountain Glaciers and
Climate Change: Challenges to Human Livelihoods
and Adaptation (Norway)