Bagmati River - Nepal
Bagmati River is known as the sacred river. It was once a beautiful flowing river with crystal clear water- pride of Kathmandu valley. But the situation has changed in past 25 years. Now Bagmati is still a sacred river for people in the Kathmandu valley but it is not clean. It is not safe even to take a holly dip in the river.
Impact of Climate Change
Over the years, due to climate change and diversion of the river for drinking purposes in the urban settlements the quantity of water in the river has been decreasing year over year. According to the Bagmati Action Plan (2009-2014) prepared for the National Trust for Nature Conservation the average water flow in the Bagmati river has decreased from above 1.4 m 3 /s in 1975-79 to below 1.2 m 3 /s in year 1995-99. This data was recorded on the basis of (DHM10) discharge data for last 25 years (1975-1999) at Sundarijal station. This change in the water flow put forth huge impact in the overall river ecosystem such as damaging the river ecosystem, aquatic life, exposing the river banks for exploitation for sand and stone quarries, channeling the flow in unsustainable ways and many other. According to the records of Sundarijal station, during these periods, frequent high discharges have been also noticed at the time of flood in Bagmati river. But, the overall trend is decreasing. The action plan has mentioned that according to the local people the water level used to be up to the Ghats and in monsoon it used to go up to the wall in Shakhamul till 2036-2037 BS.
Socioeconomic Impact
The action plan has highlighted that decrease in aquatic biodiversity has also great brunt on socioeconomic status of people living in downstream. A community consultation conducted by the researchers in a settlement near the Kautwal Daha reveals that there was a settlement of an ethnic group called Danuwar whose major occupation was fishing. According to the villagers ethnic groups have migrated to other places due to extinct of fish species in the river in that segment of the river.
