Kuensel Online: As a build up to the “Climate Summit for a Living Himalayas 2011,” scheduled for November in Bhutan this year, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal identified a host of issues related to water security for regional cooperation.

This was done at a two-day expert group regional consultative meeting in Bangladesh to develop a 10-year regional roadmap beginning 2012 on water security, which ended yesterday. Water is one of the four thematic issues of the climate summit among food, biodiversity, and energy.

The members identified areas of cooperation, divided into two broad headings – climate change and its impact on regional water resources, and sharing of knowledge and capacity building.

The countries agreed to assess the existing hydro-meteorological network and enhance the data collection process. They will review the climate modelling and select appropriate modelling tools to develop hydrological scenarios at different scales in the region.

The member countries also agreed to enhance ecosystem management practices to minimise the impacts of climate change-induced disasters. They will develop effective approaches and actions concerning disaster management.

Considering irreversible impacts of climate change, the countries agreed to build resilience through conservation of mountain, coastal and wetland ecosystems, while also emphasising the need to promote traditional water conservation techniques backstopped by modern methods to increase the efficiency of water use.

One of the important agreements was to quantify and value environmental services of the eastern Himalayan ecosystem as source of water.

The delegations agreed to establish a network among national learning centres and institutes for capacity building and to carry out studies related to water resource management and climate change in the region.

To improve the understanding of climate change impacts on water resources, the countries agreed to share related knowledge products.

The delegates said there is an urgent need to forge a close cooperation among the south-eastern Himalayan nations to adapt to the hazards of climate change. They said the region is a source of major rivers, on which the livelihood of more than 1.3 billion people depends.

Given the importance of water, the experts in the meeting said the four countries must transcend their political boundaries and come together to adapt to the effects of climate change on water resources.

“The countries are separated by their political boundaries, but not by the ecosystem,” said the chief guest at the inaugural session of the meeting and the environment minister of Bangladesh, Dr Hasan Mahamud.

Most experts said the region has more to gain by tackling water issues with a clear regional cooperative framework than handling individually.

The convenor for Bhutan Climate Summit, Nawang Norbu, said the success of the meeting takes the region a step closer toward being better prepared to address issues related to the impacts of climate change.

The expert group meeting on water security is the first among the four thematic issues. Meetings on the rest of the themes will be held in this month in other three member countries.

The resolutions of the expert group will be discussed at the policy level meeting in September in Bhutan. Source>>

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