KATHMANDU, Sept 16: The government has constituted a seven-member expert study committee to find out the scientific basis and evidence of the floods in the Bhotekoshi river of Rasuwa.
The Ministry of Energy, Water Resources, and Irrigation formed a study committee on Wednesday under the coordination of water policy and governance expert Devesh Belbase.
According to Ministry spokesperson Mohan Kumar Shakya, the committee includes hydrologist Dr. Narendra Man Shakya, glaciologist Dr. Rijan Bhakta Kayastha, remote sensing expert Dr. Uttam Babu Shrestha, geologist Dr. Meghraj Dhital, hydropower infrastructure specialist Dr. Hari Pandit, and disaster risk reduction expert Anil Pokharel.
How Politics Killed Science in Gandaki Province
The ministry has said that the committee will carry out a field study from the origin of the flood to the entire riverside area. The ministry plans to conduct a scientific study on the actual causes of the flood and the related mountain land risks, the sequence of events, and the possible role of climate change.
According to spokesperson Shakya, the ministry has decided to conduct a scientific study based on the proposal from the Water and Energy Commission Secretariat, which suggests that the devastating flood in Rasuwa's Bhotekoshi river and subsequently in Trishuli river should be studied not just as an ordinary flood, but as a potential 'chain disaster' that developed consecutively due to various geographical, glacial, hydrological, and other risks originating in the high Himalayan region.
Earlier, the Hydrology and Water Resources Research Center under the Secretariat of the Water and Energy Commission had conducted a preliminary study on this.
In preliminary studies, there isn't enough scientific evidence yet to confirm where the Rasuwa incident originated, which physical process triggered the disaster, and how those processes spread to the lower areas through the Bhotekoshi–Lhende river system.
So, the Center suggested that a scientific study of the entire sequence of events is necessary before concluding climate change as the cause of the incident. Now, a comprehensive study of geology, temperature, and water is going to be conducted.
Spokesperson Shakya said that the Ministry has taken the initiative to study the flood because such disasters in other river systems could directly impact various infrastructures of the Ministry of Energy just as the flood in Bhotekoshi affected the ministry's infrastructure in the Trishuli Corridor.
