Mapping a more stable future
By Madhukar Upadhya
Widespread wildfires gripped the country this year, making it one of the worst in almost a decade. Wildfires aren’t uncommon during winter, but they get worse, like this year, when winter rains fail to arrive. It is noteworthy that this year’s dry winter succeeded a devastatingly wet monsoon last year.
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Nearly half of Nepal’s population living in the mountains is exposed to recurrent hazards like intense rains during monsoons and acute shortage of water during winters—both of which have undermined progress and inflicted unimaginable suffering.
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Speaking of disasters, Nepal aims to achieve its national goals of reducing disaster mortality or, more specifically, reducing the number of people affected by direct disaster economic loss, for which actions must begin at the local level by developing local disaster risk reduction strategies. Unfortunately, the chasm between the national goals and local actions only seems to widen.
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However, only measures such as this that are informed by our unique combination of geography, sociopolitical issues, and changing global climate, enable us to reach the millions of people across thousands of villages to liberate them from grinding poverty and rescue them and their properties from the increasing menace of water-related disasters, all with limited financial and institutional capabilities.
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