Kathmandu Valley, a place naturally blessed with water is now drying up!
Anyone who can solve the problems of water will be worthy of two Nobel prizes — one for peace and one for science ~ John F. Kennedy
Water as a natural resource is the most important element to sustain livelihood and maintain a life-supporting environment such as ecosystems.
Like other living organisms, the human body consists of large portions of water. By that, it is well-understood that we need water from birth to death.
It is known that the civilization of Kathmandu Valley had begun alongside the Bagmati River. The holy river separates the cities; Kathmandu from Patan.
In recent decades, many people have migrated to Kathmandu because of resource availability and the centralized government system. With the growing urbanization, there are more solid waste generation, more water/land demand, more concrete structures, and more roads/sidewalks, as a result, the same river is getting polluted.
As more and more landscapes are covered with hard impermeable surfaces, the rainwater that soaks into the ground decreases altering the natural water cycle.
Without an effective rainwater drainage outlet system, the urbanized area is flooded due to the accumulation of the local rainfall.
The floodwaters could raise the risk of infectious diseases including skin rash, hepatitis A, diarrheal disease, etc. Furthermore, the urban flooding disrupts the traffic, and it changes the driver’s driving pattern and their productivity of the day, indirectly leading to economic loss.
Besides this, scarcity of drinking water has already impacted vulnerable groups in the community and is yet to impact others soon. Springs have been providing water to our communities for ages, and they are drying up at an alarming rate.
Springwater originates from underground that flows naturally to the earth’s surface which could be safely consumed by human beings. They are usually found in the upper part of human settlement and just below the forest.
Nowadays, as the unplanned settlements are concentrated near the spring, it has been disrupting the natural water sources nearby.
The locals mostly prioritized construction projects and overlook the environmental impacts. Within a few years of urbanization, many stone spouts (Dhunge dhara) in the Kathmandu valley which have been running smoothly for hundreds of years are drying up due to unmanaged pipeline constructions.
It is often thought that modern development has enhanced our lifestyle, in a certain way, it is agreeable. Also, it could be easy to think that as a developing civilization, things are less likely to go wrong. But there are places in the globe where people have been so deprived of water that their community consists of water thieves/mafia. This type of outcome could be prevented if we can differentiate between “right” and “wrong” development choices.
