NAWALPUR, JUNE 23 Nepal's monsoon has arrived late and is expected to remain weak in its early phase, raising concerns for a country heavily dependent on rainfall for agriculture, drinking water and hydropower. The Department of Hydrology and Meteorology has forecast below-average rainfall across much of the country, with southern Karnali, most of Lumbini, eastern Madhesh and southern Koshi facing a 55 to 65 percent probability of deficit rainfall. For communities living in the Chure range, however, water scarcity is not merely a bad-monsoon-year problem. Decades of deforestation, riverbed extraction and unplanned settlements have weakened the hills' ability to absorb and gradually release rainwater, leaving many areas chronically water-stressed. In a community forest in Hupsekot Rural Municipality-4 of Nawalpur, residents are attempting to restore what the Chure has gradually lost - its ability to hold water. At one of the newly excavated conservation ponds inside the forest, chairperson of the community forest user group, Rupa Rana, points to a dark, compact layer along the upper edge of the pond wall. That, she explains, marks the level of an older pond that once existed here. 'This is where the earlier pond used to be,' she says, stepping carefully into the muddy pit still softened by last night's rain. 'We have dug it deeper now.' She recalls that the site once belonged to her father-in-law, who had originally dug a small pond for buffaloes when villagers still lived in the upper forest. After settlements gradually shifted downhill decades ago, the pond was abandoned and the area returned to forest. 'People used to live around here earlier. Now it is all forest,' she says. Standing at one corner of the excavation, she points toward a shallow outlet cut into the earth. 'This is the spill channel. When there is excess water, it flows out from here,' she explains, noting that the structure is still under construction and not yet stabilised for full use. The pond, she says, will only serve its purpose once the structure settles and is completed. Until then, it remains part excavation, part restoration - a landscape being re-engineered to hold water again. A short walk downhill, Rana shows another intervention: a drinking water source that now feeds settlements below the forest. The system has recently been upgraded with a cemented structure and a corrugated metal cover. Earlier, she explains, the source was open, leaving it exposed to dust, wind, animals and monkeys. 'People used to fall sick sometimes because the water got polluted,' she says. The source, she adds, was also smaller in the past. Today, it carries more consistent flow and, with its protective covering, has become safer for households that depend on it daily.

The Joltepokhari Community Forest User Group has spent the past few years restoring conservation ponds, reviving springs and building water augmentation structures like contour trenches, flood diversion canal and constructing chandra pokhari (half-moon pits) - semi-circular earthen structures built on slopes to capture monsoon runoff and allow water to infiltrate the soil. These interventions help reduce erosion, recharge groundwater and maintain moisture during the dry season. The work in Joltepokhari forms part of the Nature-Based Solutions: The Triple Benefit Program (NBS-TBP), led by WWF Nepal in partnership with local implementing organisation SAHAMATI, operating across the Gindri and Khageri watersheds of the Lower Narayani River Basin. The programme combines conservation ponds, spring and wetland restoration, and bioengineering measures to reduce erosion, alongside livelihood initiatives aimed at reducing dependence on forest resources. In Joltepokhari, the programme has supported an 908-metre irrigation canal benefiting 65 households, along with conservation ponds and spring revival initiatives reaching hundreds of families. Across the wider project area, spring restoration has benefited 286 marginalised households and pond construction has reached another 341 households. Rupa Rana, chair of the Joltepokhari Community Forest User Group, said the forest sits at a higher altitude than others in the rural municipality and is home largely to the Magar community. Despite its proximity to Chitwan National Park, an area rich in tourism-linked income opportunities, the forest itself offered the community few ways to earn a living. Because the forest is relatively young, there is not enough timber to sell, leaving few options for the community's poorer households to improve their income, Rana said. The alternatives - vegetable farming, fish farming, goat and pig rearing, and beekeeping - all required one thing the forest didn't reliably have: water. The only sources available sat deep within the forest's shade, far from where people could put them to use. 'Earlier we had no knowledge of these things,' Rana said. 'We did not know that building conservation ponds in the forest would help us this much.' The results, according to Rana, have gone beyond what the community expected. The ponds have made the forest visibly greener, while also recharging groundwater that feeds the community's drinking water sources - including a large water tank, three kilometres away, fed by five separate spring sources. Before the project, even drinking water was difficult to come by; now, new households have begun vegetable farming using the improved supply. These water holding structures has also enhanced soil moisture thus reducing the threat of forest fire in the forest vicinity.

The forest's name comes from the original 'Joltepokhari' - twin ponds that once sat conjoined in the forest, used decades ago by buffalo from villages that have since moved further down the hill. Left unattended after the villages relocated, the ponds had fallen into disrepair before being restored last year. Because the site was a natural pond rather than a newly dug one, Rana said it retains water far longer than the more recently built structures. The ponds have also become an unexpected draw for wildlife. Rana pointed to fresh tracks left by wild boars that now use the ponds regularly - a sign, she said, of how the area's dry, water-scarce forest has supported more wildlife since the restoration began. Beyond the ecological impact, the ponds carry sentimental weight for the community's older residents, who remember the original ponds and value their restoration as a piece of local history being preserved alongside the water itself. Downstream, the effects have been measurable: water sources below the restored ponds did not run dry this year, a change Rana attributes directly to the recharge effect of the chandra pokhari and the revived springs above. New water sources have begun emerging in the area as a result, now used for both drinking water and irrigation. The chandra pokhari ponds themselves measure roughly 7 by 2 metres, with the larger conservation ponds at 14 by 21 metres and 15 by 5 metres. The livelihood component of the programme has reached households across multiple sectors: 14 households are now engaged in organic vegetable farming, two in fish farming, and seven in beekeeping, including Rana herself. Beyond farming techniques, the programme connected participants to markets, helping households sustain new income sources while reducing their dependence on forest resources. Among those who have benefited is Hemari Marsaini, 30, a mother of five who has taken up goat farming since water and greenery became more available in the area. Marsaini now sells four to five goats at a time, at roughly Rs 15,000 per goat, income she said has made managing her household considerably easier.

Another community forest in Hupsekot Rural Municipality-4, Shankha Dev Hasaura Community Forest User Group, is also implementing similar conservation interventions. Here, conservation efforts include a 0.12-hectare simsar (wetland) pond and two additional conservation ponds covering 0.0611 hectares, together benefiting around 625 households. Local users say the changes are already visible in the soil. Where water once drained quickly after rainfall, the land now retains moisture for longer periods. Farmers report that paddy fields remain damp even during harvest time - a condition that was rare in previous years when fields would dry out much earlier. The surrounding landscape has also begun to change. Vegetation cover has increased, and vegetable farming has expanded in households that earlier depended solely on rain-fed agriculture. Locals attribute this shift directly to improved water retention from the ponds and wetland systems. The experience of Hupsekot suggests that water security in the Chure cannot depend solely on favourable monsoons. As rainfall patterns become increasingly erratic, restoring springs, ponds and watersheds is emerging as a practical climate adaptation strategy for some of Nepal's most water-stressed communities. - (With inputs from Karun Dewan, Program Officer, Freshwater Programs, WWF Nepal)