Kathmandu, November 28

A meeting on "Water Induced Disaster Management in Nepal- 33 years History for Disaster Prevention Technical Committee /DMSP Project/In Future" was held by a the Nepal-Japan Friendship Association of Water Induced Disaster Prevention (NFAD) in Kathmandu.

While the technical cooperation for reduction of water induced disaster had been executed by the Government of Napal and JICA for 16 years since 1991, the NFAD has supported it and has tried to enhance community level disaster education since 1993. Experts said during the implementation of JICA project, several model sites have been constructed in Nepal, and Japanese erosion control technologies with the combination of locally available materials has been adopted there.

After the field excursion to inspect the previous model sites for gully erosion control and slope protection including landslides, a discussion meeting was held with the participation of Japanese experts of NFAD, experts from Hirosaki University, Japan and senior experts and present engineers and scientists of Nepal concerned with water induced disaster. Present status of water induced disaster management in Nepal was discussed.

Participant said since extreme improvement of devastated slopes by gully erosion and landslides has been recognized at the model sites, they pointed out importance of successive technical transition to next generation in Nepal. It was proposed that various data such as reports and photos kept as soft copies by NFAD can be used for future development of water induced disaster reduction both by mitigation works and researches.

In conclusion, as participants said water induced disaster occur both due to naturally and artificially and intensity/ density occurrences are increasing as well. They said it is essential to strengthen the capability to tackle with water induced disaster through collaboration among related implementation governments and research organisations. The meeting also concluded that a certain organization to deal with disaster mitigation technically and administratively in Nepal should be established.