Vulnerability assessment of freshwater resources : a case study of the Bagmati River Basin, Nepal | |
| Author | Pandey, Vishnu Prasad |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.WM-06-13 |
| Subject(s) | Water resources development--Evaluation--Nepal--Bagmati River Basin Water-supply--Evaluation--Nepal--Bagmati River Basin |
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering in Water Engineering and Management |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) approach, which is based on Dublin Principles and asserts that freshwater is a vulnerable resource, is a common agenda of water management authorities. Understanding the vulnerability not only forms a basis for the policy makers to prioritize the action, but also draws attention on source of vulnerability and scans opportunity for adaptive management of scare water resources. Current state-of-the-art of vulnerability assessment focus on "physical water demand" and disregards the notion of social and consumptive habit and how society and ecosystem deals with water stress rather than treating stress itself as a critical issue. This study has developed an indicator based framework for vulnerability assessment (of freshwater resources) as a function of exposure, water stress and adaptive capacity and has applied in the Bagmati River basin (BRB) in Nepal. Three types of exposures - environment change, socio-economic change and climate change - are considered. The exposure indicators are used in calculating water stress and adaptive capacity parameters and then indices, which serve as sub-indices for vulnerability index. State of environment indicators shows trends in the direction of increasing stress and spatial variability (northern part of the basin faces more pressure than southern part) within the BRB. Similarly, increasing trend in socioeconomic indicators has resulted increase in both water stress and adaptive capacity. Analysis of climate indices suggests general warming, resource variability and spatial variability of climate indices in the basin. Finally, both water stress and adaptive capacity parameters (and then indices) are increasing over the temporal scale. Despite of increase in water stress index, vulnerability index do not have clear increasing trend over the time. Furthermore, the northern part of the basin is more vulnerable than the southern. |
| Year | 2007 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Engineering and Technology (SET) |
| Department | Department of Civil and Infrastucture Engineering (DCIE) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Water Engineering and Management (WM) |
| Chairperson(s) | Babel, Mukand Singh;Gupta, Ashim Das; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Clemente, Roberto S.;Herath, Srikantha; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | THAILAND (HM King); |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2007 |