From the young
researchers to researchers with long history, from pure science based
researchers to practitioner and community workers, from local government
officials to national level officials etc. were congregated in Kathmandu on
August 10th and 11th for the consultation on adaptation
to climate change impacts focusing on putting research into use.
Overview
In the two days, there were two
sessions for presenting the view of the panelist in each day and two technical
sessions for the touch table usages followed with the discussions by the involved
participates in each.
In the first part of the session
followed after the welcome remarks, the presenters presented the
general introduction of the HI-AWARE, Research component 1 (Climate modeling),
research component 2 (Vulnerability) and in adaptation component. The panelist
from Ministry of land reforms, Environment and Municipality development section
of MoFA, water induced disaster control department, DRR specialist of Practical
Action put their remarks after the presentations.
The government officials in one hand
gave the ongoing happenings of the respective coverage areas and in another hand urge to
integrate the findings of previous research and projects like CHAL/SHAL/TAL, Hariyo Ban etc. The research for the
scarcity of the water in many parts of country was a special urge. Government
officials were committed to integrate the outputs of research in the policies and practices
if the outputs are submitted in the concrete form.
The concept of touch table was presented and the participants practiced on the
themes of precipitation/flood and temperature/drought during the workshop
making two groups and inner and outer cluster in each group. The participants
suggested for the integration of different maps as per need, to account the contribution
of GOLF and expressed the kind concerns on Quality control of the data, Licensing
and device uses are supposed to be made user friendly.
In Policies and Practices Panel on Adaptation in Nepal, eight panelist with a moderator
interacted with the participants. Three of them were from the district
development committees of Rasuwa, Chitwan, and Nuwakot, two of them were from
Ministry of water and Sanitation and Forest and Soil conservation, one each
from Adaptation fund, Media and Research Centre.
The NAP coordinator focused on the
formulation of policies and milestones achieved whereas the representatives
from sectorial ministries shared the plans and action of the respective
ministries, the DDC representatives explained the current situation of the respective
district, representative of IDF on research prospective, DRR specialist of
Pratical action on the joint actions and media person on the media prospective
focusing what is grabbed by the media.
Foci
-
Gandaki
Basin; one of the 10 river basin in the Hind Kush Himalayan (HKH) region
-
Consideration
of projected (by 2050) heat stress in the India and Bangaladesh
-
People
moved to upstream due to malaria in the past and now water scarcity forced to
move downward
-
Documentation
of good development practices (IWRM, Seed Bank, Solar, Wind, Hydro)
-
Urge
to research on the water scarcity
-
Publish
the research outcomes in locally understandable language
- Vulnerability
map and zonation in implementation
-
Contribution
for creating act on water induced disaster management in Nepal
-
Adaptation
for the future
-
Need
driven strategy for future
-
Issues
of high land, midland and low land
-
Milestones
in the adaptation process by the government of Nepal
-
Presentation of NAP implementation modal and reflection of wishes to affect the life of very
general public to honorable Prime Minister
-
involvement
of young graduates in NAP process for knowledge generation, capacity building and
learning
-
Climate
Resilient water supply safety plan of the MoWS
-
Necessity
to be focused on new arrangement by constitution which seems to make the DDC a
powerless body
-
Adaptation
is most important factor and must be done for the better livelihood of poor
people
-
Research
component is very important
-
gap
in demand and supply
-
Media
lacking how to take researches and researchers lacking what and how to give
media
Erudition
The knowledge generation and research
are the ever ending process but there are still lacking of the basic research outputs
that are vital for the policy formulation and implementation. The fractional
study trend and individualistic approach is not well contributing the wholesome
understanding of the scenario. In one hand government officials are asking for
the concrete suggestions and in another hand the researchers are asking to
start implementation with the available information.
There is still much needed in
knowledge generation and need a lot of work in effective dissemination of the research
outputs.
It has been realized that there needs
to be engagement of wider range of researchers in the process but how to make
it is much perplexing.
Afterward
Collaborative efforts with
responsible individual roles are the most demanding need. The trend and
necessity of research is always dynamic and have to be driven as per the need.
Every part of the research may not be directly useful but each part of the
research contributes for making concrete outcomes to be applied.
The research for the current use over
the modeling, the research reports in the simple local language over the
complex complied reports, the well dissemination of results over the copyright/protection, involvement and trust to young passionate engagement over the
handful of engagement etc. need to be considered.
The workshop was hosted by the Himalayan Adaptation, Water and Resilience
Research (HI-AWARE) which is one of the four consortia of the Collaborative
Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA) and conducting
research and pilot interventions, capacity building and policy engagement on
climate resilience and adaptation in the mountains and flood plains of the
Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra river basins.
