Addressing Environmental Risks in the Changing Climate of Nepal

Nepal, an important Himalayan nation with considerable natural variability, has seen pronounced effects of climate change in recent years through disasters like floods, landslides, cold waves, and heat waves, with the past year showing increased challenges. Disaster risk management in Nepal is often challenging due to both complex climatology and fragile geology. Jupiter Intelligence and the Institute of Himalayan Risk Reduction (IHRR), a small non-profit research organization in Lalitpur-Nepal, are partnering to understand this risk through science, technology, and engineering and therefore promoting sustainable solutions in disaster risk management. One of the major challenges that IHRR currently faces is the lack of forward-looking climate data that will be crucial in mapping climate risks for different perils throughout the country. Jupiter’s high resolution climate products, based on CMIP6 data, are being used for mapping climate risks in Nepal where topographies change drastically over small distances, and where weather stations are scarce above the elevation of 3000 meters. Verification through traditional scientific methods as well as crowd sourcing and citizen science tools will be embraced and adapted for this unique challenge. This presentation will describe the products used to identify the most at-risk areas in Nepal and will discuss how spatial resolution, climate scenarios and different metrics for summarizing climate change can be used for decision making in disaster risk management. IHRR's innovative use of climate information to inform and to empower the citizens of Nepal will be highlighted as an example of effective climate risk information.