Indigenous water management system in Nepal: cultural dimensions of water distribution, cascaded reuse and harvesting in Bhaktapur City

Gautam, Dipendra; Thapa, Bhesh Raj; Prajapati, R.

doi:10.1007/s10668-017-9964-2

Cited by 14 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 26 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…It is conveyance and reusability practices for the historical settlement. The study highlights that revitalization of IWMS is possible in Bhaktapur city [47].…”

Section: Disaster Resilient Constructionmentioning

confidence: 84%

Disaster Resilient Construction of Water Spouts in Kathmandu Valley of Nepal

Shrestha¹,

Dahal²

2020

JCCEE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Kathmandu valley was formed by draining the lake through Bagmati River of the Chobar gorge in the ancient time. The bedrock inside the surface of Kathmandu valley consists of clay sediment i.e Kalimati (It means the black soil in Nepali) clay which is also called the dense impenetrable black mud. This type of soil is very fertile. The people of the valley utilized the geographic structure and the natural resources with skill to enhance civilization, which is shown from the traditional water supply or the hiti (Dhunge Dhara in Nepali) system. It is also called the water spout or rainspout. This study was conducted during the period from January to June 2020. Published literature such as paper, manuals, reports, and database were collected from different sources and went on thoroughly. The study found that the population of Kathmandu and Lalitpur is increasing rapidly but the source of drinking water is decreasing gradually. In the past, Dhunge Dhara was feeding the communities for drinking water as there are all together 237 Dhunge Dhara in Kathmandu and Lalitpur area. In the Kathmandu Valley, the source of water spouts decline is due to the development of various engineering infrastructures such as roads, buildings, towers, and so on. Similarly, rapid growth of urbanization took place near the source of water spouts. As a result, there could not be the chance of ground water recharge. The water from the rainfall flows directly through the waste pipe to the river. In the past, there were irrigation canals called Rajkulo (Canal made by the King in the Kathmandu Valley), these canals effectively recharged the ground water. As the valley is converted into the city of concrete, it causes stoppage of ground water recharge near the hiti. Consequently, there is no water in the water spouts i.e. in Dhunge Dhara. The study would like to suggest that the traditional Dhunge Dhara in the valley must be preserved through the initiation of the local, provincial and central government.

show abstract

“…It is conveyance and reusability practices for the historical settlement. The study highlights that revitalization of IWMS is possible in Bhaktapur city [47].…”

Section: Disaster Resilient Constructionmentioning

confidence: 84%

Disaster Resilient Construction of Water Spouts in Kathmandu Valley of Nepal

Shrestha¹,

Dahal²

2020

JCCEE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…If this trend continues, by 2025 there will be no agricultural fields left, since recently most agricultural land has been converted into built-up areas [25]. Such rapid urbanization may have exacerbated the decline by increasing impermeable surfaces in the valley's groundwater recharge areas [26]. KUKL is supplying only 115 MLD during the wet season and 69 MLD during the dry season based on data from 2015 [27].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of Water Security in Kathmandu Valley before and after Water Transfer from another Basin

Thapa

Ishidaira

Pandey³

et al. 2018

Water

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited (KUKL) has planned to harness water from outside the valley from Melamchi as an inter-basin project to supply water inside the ring road (core valley area) of the Kathmandu Valley (KV). The project, called the "Melamchi Water Supply Project (MWSP)", is expected to have its first phase completed by the end of September 2018 and its second phase completed by the end of 2023 to supply 170 MLD (million liters a day) through the first phase and an additional 340 MLD through the second phase. The area has recently faced a severe water deficit and KUKL's existing infrastructure has had a limited capability, supplying only 19% of the water that is demanded in its service areas during the dry season and 31% during the wet season. In this context, this study aims to assess the temporal trends and spatial distribution of household water security index (WSI), defined as a ratio of supply to demand for domestic water use for basic human water requirements (50 L per capita per day (lpcd)) and economic growth (135 lpcd) as demand in preand post-MWSP scenarios. For this purpose, data on water demand and supply with infrastructure were used to map the spatial distribution of WSI and per capita water supply using ArcMap. Results show a severe water insecurity condition in the year 2017 in all KUKL service areas (SAs), which is likely to improve after completion of the MWSP. It is likely that recent distribution network and strategies may lead to inequality in water distribution within the SAs. This can possibly be addressed by expanding existing distribution networks and redistributing potable water, which can serve an additional 1.21 million people in the area. Service providers may have to develop strategies to strengthen a set of measures including improving water supply infrastructures, optimizing water loss, harnessing additional water from hills, and managing water within and outside the KUKL SAs in the long run to cover the entire KV.

show abstract

“…However, the private organizations could serve only 31 percent of the valley denizens during the rainy and winter seasons, and this service was shrunken to 19 percent during the dry seasons (Thapa et al, 2016). KUKL used to collect 65.3 MLD water in the dry season and 131 MLD in the wet season from various sources such as rivers and groundwaters to serve Kathmandu residents (Prajapati et al 2021;Gautam et al, 2017).…”

Section: The Increasing Water Demand Of the Kathmandu Valleymentioning

confidence: 99%

Minimizing surface run-off, improving underground water recharging, and on-site rain harvesting in the Kathmandu valley

Bhattarai

Adhikari²

2022

Nep. Pub. Pol. Rev.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Nepal’s political institutions and administrative units were thoroughly restructured in 2015 with the promulgation of the new Constitution. Several rural areas were combined to meet the definition of urban threshold criteria to classify rural areas into urban categories. Accordingly, over 3,900 local political and administrative units were amalgamated into 753 units, of which, 293 units are classified as urban. Within these newly defined urban areas, many natural environments have been converted into impervious surfaces such as paved roads, sidewalks, and building roofs. These impervious surfaces have drastically increased the amount of surface run-offs—often termed as “urban floods” --under increasing precipitation caused by global climate change. These incidences have negatively impacted to the groundwater recharge processes in the urban areas. Data on groundwater recharge rates are needed in the context of global climate change to understand the status of groundwater recharge processes in the urban areas of Nepal. However, due to various limitations, this study only focuses around the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal to understand: a) how the expansion of urban, peri-urban, and associated areas have resulted in decreasing groundwater recharges; b) how groundwater is affected by the year-to-year variability of precipitation amount (low and high intensity) with the conversion of the natural landscape into built-up areas; and c) how the changing trends in precipitation and evapotranspiration may impact future groundwater availability. This study is based on a review of the literature and the analysis of secondary data available from the government and various social media and authors' professional experiences. The study ends with some recommendations based on experiences from other parts of the world on groundwater recharge processes.

show abstract

Indigenous water management system in Nepal: cultural dimensions of water distribution, cascaded reuse and harvesting in Bhaktapur City

Cited by 14 publications

References 26 publications

Disaster Resilient Construction of Water Spouts in Kathmandu Valley of Nepal

Disaster Resilient Construction of Water Spouts in Kathmandu Valley of Nepal

Evaluation of Water Security in Kathmandu Valley before and after Water Transfer from another Basin

Minimizing surface run-off, improving underground water recharging, and on-site rain harvesting in the Kathmandu valley

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About