Watershed Management in the Himalayas: Book Review
Watershed Management in the Himalayas- A Resource analysis Approach; by Krishna Prashad Poudel, Adroit Publisher, New Delhi, 2003, Total Pages: 361, Price: Rs. 550.
“Environment and development are not separate challenges; they are inexorably linked. Development cannot subsist upon a deteriorating environmental resource base; the environment cannot be protected when growth leaves out of account the costs of environmental destruction. These problems cannot be treated separately by fragmented institutions and policies. They are linked in a complex system of cause and effect”. (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987:37)
In the context of the above arguments watersheds are regarded as the focal units for environmental management and sustainable development across the geographies of mountain systems. Mountain watersheds as units of regional environmental and development planning strategies have found place in the larger development-planning framework only recently as far as the Himalayas are concerned. Development Planners and policy makers engaged themselves into the lopsided approach of planning environment and development dynamics through their own unscientific methods over the years and invited several environmental problems and un-sustainability in development paradigm across the Himalayas. This was despite the fact that researchers, experts and other relevant personalities and organisations periodically warned such approaches of the government institutions and provided alternative paradigms through various mediums like publication of books, articles, organising seminars/conferences, conducting training programmes to the government officials etc.
Today this youngest and the loftiest system of the world is marred with various environmental and development hazards. Across the spaces of the Himalayan Mountain System the quality and quantity of resources and their bases are degrading; population and their habitations are increasingly expanding towards more vulnerable and marginal areas; unscientific and capitalistic development ventures are seen all across the Himalayas; people across the rural spaces are largely unaware of the environmental fall out of myopic development pursuits of the governments; and the future of the Himalaya seems to be clearly uncertain.
It is in the above context researchers, experts, voluntary organisation and the well wishers of the Himalaya from within and outside this great system have been repeatedly pointing out that we need to follow watersheds and sub-watersheds, and not the political or administrative boundaries as the major units in any regional development planning ventures. They have also been hinting that we need to go for a holistic development approach across the defined watersheds and not on the sectoral basis. Although, more recently such feelings have been observed among the development planners and policy makers and that most of the government institutions across the Himalayan region have started to respect decentralised watersheds based approach in their development ventures we, nevertheless, have a long way to go in this respect.
This invaluable publication by Dr. Poudel seeks to highlight the above-indicated issues of the Himalayan development dynamics and many other relevant issues pertaining to the watersheds taking the case studies of selected watersheds of Annapurna Region located in the Central Nepal Himalayas.
The book has been divided into ten interlinked chapters. The first two chapters cover introduction, conceptual framework and research design, problems encountered in the Himalayan watersheds, theoretical nexus, and watershed management practices in the process of national planning in Nepal. The chapters carry the issues pertaining to the resource utilisation and management, and philosophical trust on watershed environment.
Background information of the studied Annapurna Region is presented in the third chapter. Various geomorphic and geographic attributes of the watersheds like linear morphometrics of the basins, altitude, relief, hill slopes, aspects, and drainage density & stream frequency in the region are studied and discussed in detail.
The fourth and fifth chapters elucidate the various geomorphic processes like mass-wasting, soil erosion and earthquake hazards; and natural resource bases including land use, farm, forest, pastures, water, biological & aesthetic resources and their geographical distribution in the region. The arguments in the chapters have been supplemented by various geographic and geomorphic techniques including maps and GIS assisted model.
Pressure of the population on the resources of the region has been worked out in chapter six with the help of various statistical measures. Geographical coincidence of population pressure areas and surface fragility has been computed and presented in the chapter. The seventh chapter navigates the distribution of infrastructure, institutions and organisations across the region and attempts to analyse their interaction with the people, place and resource.
Chapter eight brings into light the household characteristics and their interaction with place and resources, resource utilisation, market mechanism and flow of goods and commodities and people’s livelihood strategies in the region through structured household survey, analysis and explanations. Chapter nine brings forth the vulnerability of resources to external physical threats, its repercussions on the local environment, policy options, local people’s preparedness and management of vulnerable resources in the watersheds in the region.
The last chapter summarises the findings of the study and puts forth proposals for alternative planning strategy, and highlights the perspective of resource utilisation and management study in the watersheds.
Besides providing a solid contribution to the scattered and scanty literature on the Himalayan watershed environments and the dynamics within; this book fills the gap of the standard reference book to the students, scholars and faculties of disciplines (like geography, geomorphology, environmental studies, etc) dealing with the issues in environmental Sciences. The book presents the importance of watersheds and their environmental setup in the context of development planning. It updates the ancient knowledge of the development planners and policy makers and can be utilised as the useful guide while planning development across the watersheds of the Himalayas.
Watershed Management in the Himalayas- A Resource analysis Approach; by Krishna Prashad Poudel, Adroit Publisher, New Delhi, 2003, Total Pages: 361, Price: Rs. 550.
“Environment and development are not separate challenges; they are inexorably linked. Development cannot subsist upon a deteriorating environmental resource base; the environment cannot be protected when growth leaves out of account the costs of environmental destruction. These problems cannot be treated separately by fragmented institutions and policies. They are linked in a complex system of cause and effect”. (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987:37)
In the context of the above arguments watersheds are regarded as the focal units for environmental management and sustainable development across the geographies of mountain systems. Mountain watersheds as units of regional environmental and development planning strategies have found place in the larger development-planning framework only recently as far as the Himalayas are concerned. Development Planners and policy makers engaged themselves into the lopsided approach of planning environment and development dynamics through their own unscientific methods over the years and invited several environmental problems and un-sustainability in development paradigm across the Himalayas. This was despite the fact that researchers, experts and other relevant personalities and organisations periodically warned such approaches of the government institutions and provided alternative paradigms through various mediums like publication of books, articles, organising seminars/conferences, conducting training programmes to the government officials etc.
Today this youngest and the loftiest system of the world is marred with various environmental and development hazards. Across the spaces of the Himalayan Mountain System the quality and quantity of resources and their bases are degrading; population and their habitations are increasingly expanding towards more vulnerable and marginal areas; unscientific and capitalistic development ventures are seen all across the Himalayas; people across the rural spaces are largely unaware of the environmental fall out of myopic development pursuits of the governments; and the future of the Himalaya seems to be clearly uncertain.
It is in the above context researchers, experts, voluntary organisation and the well wishers of the Himalaya from within and outside this great system have been repeatedly pointing out that we need to follow watersheds and sub-watersheds, and not the political or administrative boundaries as the major units in any regional development planning ventures. They have also been hinting that we need to go for a holistic development approach across the defined watersheds and not on the sectoral basis. Although, more recently such feelings have been observed among the development planners and policy makers and that most of the government institutions across the Himalayan region have started to respect decentralised watersheds based approach in their development ventures we, nevertheless, have a long way to go in this respect.
This invaluable publication by Dr. Poudel seeks to highlight the above-indicated issues of the Himalayan development dynamics and many other relevant issues pertaining to the watersheds taking the case studies of selected watersheds of Annapurna Region located in the Central Nepal Himalayas.
The book has been divided into ten interlinked chapters. The first two chapters cover introduction, conceptual framework and research design, problems encountered in the Himalayan watersheds, theoretical nexus, and watershed management practices in the process of national planning in Nepal. The chapters carry the issues pertaining to the resource utilisation and management, and philosophical trust on watershed environment.
Background information of the studied Annapurna Region is presented in the third chapter. Various geomorphic and geographic attributes of the watersheds like linear morphometrics of the basins, altitude, relief, hill slopes, aspects, and drainage density & stream frequency in the region are studied and discussed in detail.
The fourth and fifth chapters elucidate the various geomorphic processes like mass-wasting, soil erosion and earthquake hazards; and natural resource bases including land use, farm, forest, pastures, water, biological & aesthetic resources and their geographical distribution in the region. The arguments in the chapters have been supplemented by various geographic and geomorphic techniques including maps and GIS assisted model.
Pressure of the population on the resources of the region has been worked out in chapter six with the help of various statistical measures. Geographical coincidence of population pressure areas and surface fragility has been computed and presented in the chapter. The seventh chapter navigates the distribution of infrastructure, institutions and organisations across the region and attempts to analyse their interaction with the people, place and resource.
Chapter eight brings into light the household characteristics and their interaction with place and resources, resource utilisation, market mechanism and flow of goods and commodities and people’s livelihood strategies in the region through structured household survey, analysis and explanations. Chapter nine brings forth the vulnerability of resources to external physical threats, its repercussions on the local environment, policy options, local people’s preparedness and management of vulnerable resources in the watersheds in the region.
The last chapter summarises the findings of the study and puts forth proposals for alternative planning strategy, and highlights the perspective of resource utilisation and management study in the watersheds.
Besides providing a solid contribution to the scattered and scanty literature on the Himalayan watershed environments and the dynamics within; this book fills the gap of the standard reference book to the students, scholars and faculties of disciplines (like geography, geomorphology, environmental studies, etc) dealing with the issues in environmental Sciences. The book presents the importance of watersheds and their environmental setup in the context of development planning. It updates the ancient knowledge of the development planners and policy makers and can be utilised as the useful guide while planning development across the watersheds of the Himalayas.
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