APN Project ARCP208-16NMY-Shrestha

Brief Note on Initial Meeting

An Initial Meeting of the APN Project ARCP208-16NMY-Shrestha was held amongst the project collaborators and the local stakeholder, on 13 and 14 November 2008 at Hotel Himalaya in Lalitpur to discuss the project implementation strategies and for charting out its detailed work plan.

While China, India, Nepal and Pakistan are the participating countries in the project, the collaborating institutions are the Institute for Tibetan Plateau Research (ITP) in China, the Institute for Development and Innovation (IDI) in Nepal, the G. B. Pant Institute for Himalayan Environment and Development (GBPIHED) in India, and the Global Change Impact Study Centre (GCISC) in Pakistan. Project leader Dr. K. L. Shrestha briefly presented the objectives of the project together with anticipated activities in the year one and the roles of the collaborators in attaining the objectives. It was followed by presentations from Dr. Yao Tandong, Director, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, China, and Mr. Ghazanfar Ali, Head, Water Section, Climate Change Impact Study Centre, Pakistan made their presentations highlighting the activities of their respective institutions and the roles they as collaborating institutions, would be playing in the project implementation.

Dr. Narayan Chaulagain then made a brief presentation based on the work he conducted for his Ph. D. thesis on the impact of climate change on the snow, glaciers and runoff in the Langtang Himalaya and their consequences to the hydropower development and livelihood of people in the region.

Discussion sessions then followed sequentially on

a) Climate modeling, Validation and Projection,

b) Climate Change Impacts on Himalayan Snow and Glacier Dynamics,

c) Snow and Glacial Melt Run-Off and Hydrology, and

d) Availability and Access to the Required Data and Support Services. The sessions were led by Dr. Madan Lal Shrestha, Dr. Narayan Chaulagain, Dr. Narendra Sakya and Mr Promod Pradhan respectively.

In the next session, conclusions and recommendations resulting from the discussion sessions were presented and agreed upon with necessary adjustments.

Finally the Initial Meeting concluded by selecting three representative research sites for investigating the impacts of global change on Himalayan water resources, namely the Koshi basin in the east, Upper Bhagirathi basin in the center and Shigar basin in the west as the project study areas. They were selected on the basis of their locations, glacier coverage, socio-economic importance and availability of field data.

It was also agreed that each of the collaborating Institution will lead the basin study in its respective country and will be responsible for collecting data, running models, and making desk and field studies for the respective basin.

Discussion was held on all those subjects with Dr. L.M.S. Palni, Director Incharge, G B Pant Institute of
Himalayan Environment and Development (GBPIHED), India, who did arrive Kathmandu a few days later and similar arrangements were agreed upon regarding the role of GBPIHED in the project implementation.