In recent years, Manang and Mustang’s rain shadow regions have seen excessive rainfall, declining crop yields, and house demolition.
This image was taken recently in Baragung Muktikshetra Rural Municipality in Mustang, when the Kaligandaki River flooded and damaged cropfields.
18-year-old Nisha Tulachan of Naurikot, Mustang, passed away while she was asleep. On July 26, 2020, she was killed instantly when her mud house fell upon her. Her grandfather, seventy years old, suffered severe injuries. According to Shukra Gauchan, Tulachan’s uncle, it had been pouring for the previous two days when the incident occurred, and their traditional mud, stone, and wood house crumbled.
In Naurikot, there are twenty-eight houses constructed in the same traditional manner as ours. The entire town was taken aback by the unusual rains in the highlands, according to Gauchan. Following the event, residents of Naurikot who were residing in homes with traditional mud roofs began to destroy and construct new homes made of concrete. The settlement of Naurikot is located in Mustang’s ward 2 of the Thasang Rural Municipality at an elevation of 2,740 meters.
Traditional mud huts are the finest way to stay warm in the mountainous area, but when the frequency of rain increased, people became afraid. In addition, residents in a number of other rural municipality wards began tearing down their old homes and erecting new ones,” said Gauchan.
Located 3,840 meters above sea level, Lo Manthang is the northernmost village in Mustang. In addition, the people residing in Lo Manthang are erecting concrete homes by tearing down their traditional mud homes.
A 66-year-old resident of Lo Manthang in ward 5 of the Lo Manthang Rural Municipality named Prem Hinjing Gurung reported that around 25 of the village’s homes are currently made of concrete. According to Gurung, “those who could afford it built new concrete houses, and a few families moved elsewhere.”
According to data from the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA), the Mustang district has seen significant damage from recent severe rains.
The NDRRMA website reports that in the 2017–18 fiscal year, torrential rains totally destroyed two residences, resulting in the loss of property valued at Rs 15.6 million.
Expert on climate change and the environment Ngamindra Dahal stated in the University of East Anglia’s Tiempo magazine in 2005 that when unusual rains began in the high Himalayan regions such as Mustang, they were having an impact on the residents’ livelihoods.
Dahal began additional studies on climate change in the mountainous area later in 2011. He was informed by the people living in the regions of Mustang and Manang that the climate in those locations was unusual, with summertime showers and less snowfall in the winter.
Dahal was informed by several people that losing traditional homes also meant losing customs and culture.
According to Dahal, Mustang and Manang, which are over 3,500 meters above sea level, are now experiencing monsoon rains, which are often restricted to areas between 2,500 and 3,000 meters above sea level owing to climate change.
“In just the last two or three decades, the monsoon has moved up to 4,000 meters, but South Asian monsoons do not go higher than 2,500 to 3,000 meters,” stated Dahal.
Manang and Mustang have quite distinct and delicate geographies. People in the mountainous area, where there would be no rainfall, used the melting snow to grow crops. Dahal went on, “The mountain districts across the Himalayas, which had different seasonal cycles, have now turned into a monsoon region.”
The average annual temperature in lower Mustang has risen by 0.021 degrees Celsius and the average annual rainfall has increased by 1.83 millimeters over the past 45 years, according to a journal article written by Dahal and published in 2022.
The journal’s data matched observations of temperature and precipitation made between 1973 and 2018 at weather stations in the lower Mustang region.
Since the fiscal year 2014–2015, there have been five occurrences of avalanches and severe rainfall in Mustang and Manang, according to the NDRRMA. Likewise, since then, there have been 19 instances of flooding and 32 landslides in the two districts.
31 homes in Mustang alone were totally destroyed by floods in four locations during the most recent monsoon season. In a similar vein, over 35 households were impacted, and 16 residences sustained some damage.
In the rural municipalities of Nason, Chame, and Manang Nesyang of the Manang district, houses, bridges, schools, and other infrastructure were destroyed by the floods that occurred on May 28, 2021, and June 15, 2021, causing property damage valued at Rs 3 billion.
On June 15, 2021, 82.2 mm of rain were reported at the Humde rainfall measurement station in Manang, according to the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology.
In Humde, the area saw 197 mm of rain over the course of 15 days in June 2021, compared to an average of 42 mm in June 2015. This exceeded the June 2015 average by 469 percent. When compared to the same period in 2015, the area saw 693 percent more rain in May 2021.
In mountainous areas, agriculture has also been impacted by the shift in seasonal rainfall schedule.
Farmers that cultivate potatoes, wheat, barley, and buckwheat in high altitude regions find it difficult to safeguard their crops from temperature increases and shifting precipitation patterns.
A local farmer from Mustang’s ward 5 of Gharapjhong Rural Municipality named Aaita Bahadur Thakali reported a drop in crop production.
Karma Gurung, a longtime commercial apple grower from Dhumba in Gharpajhong Rural Municipality, Mustang, claims that during the fiscal year 2021–2022, the district harvested 5,464 metric tonnes of apples from 520 hectares. In the fiscal year 2023–24, the total production of apples was only 6,250 metric tonnes, despite the fact that the growing area has increased to 1,400 hectares.
The head of the Agriculture Knowledge Centre in Manang, Madan Regmi, said that the apple blooms in upper Manang were harmed by snowfall on April 26. Because it was below freezing, the activity of beneficial insects that aid in pollination, such as bees and bumblebees, was also reduced.
“Crop yields have been severely impacted by unexpected weather events, which have become more frequent during the main season,” according to Regmi.
The cold has had an impact on vegetable production in addition to apples. For the past few years, the lower parts of Manang that were previously subjected to monsoon rains have seen dry monsoons. For the previous few years, there has been a lot of rain during the monsoon in the earlier rain shadow region in the highlands. Farmers have been most affected by these unforeseen changes in rainfall patterns, according to Regmi.
According to the locals, climate change is also causing the Sang tree, a type of pine located in the upper Mustang region that is utilised for prayer and other rites, to go extinct.
In a report released by the National Statistics Office, 47.1% of the families surveyed in Gandaki Province’s Himalayan region claimed to have experienced the effects of climate change in the previous 25 years.
According to 39.5 percent of families in the province of Gandaki, throughout the last 25 years, new pests and illnesses have emerged in crops.
According to a poll conducted by the agency, 97.4% of families in Gandaki are also unaware of the early warning system for climatic disasters.
The district disaster management committee chairman and chief district officer of Mustang, Janakraj Panta, stated that while local administrations are making every attempt to reduce risk and adapt to climate change, these efforts fall short.
“The local government and district authorities are no longer able to handle the situation. Although they are aware of the catastrophes brought on by climate change, the federal and provincial administrations have not been implementing mitigating measures, according to Pant. Pant continued, “There’s a greater chance of more harm the longer long-term programmes are delayed.”
According to environment expert Dahal, long-term climate adaption and disaster mitigation strategies should be implemented by the federal and provincial governments.
For more information about Climate change click below :-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change
