A little over a week after the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology announced the withdrawal of the monsoon from the country and, therefore, the suspension of daily flood forecasts and flood bulletins for the remainder of the year, an unusual western disturbance slammed into the Himalayan range, triggering extremely heavy spells of rain in the middle of October.

The torrential downpour, which lasted around three days with sporadic cloudbursts over the western part of the country, gradually moved eastward, causing massive damage to lives and properties across the region. At least 107 lives were lost in landslides and floods across the country, with another 31 still unaccounted for. Harvested rice, worth Rs8 billion, ended up submerged under floodwaters in the Tarai. Swollen rivers washed away bridges in many places, damaging roads and highways. The unusual rain coincided with the Dashain festival, which was celebrated with much fanfare with people travelling to visit their families. Farmers were pleased with the rice harvest, which they'd been able to plant in time due to timely monsoon rains in July. Alas, the October rain ruined the excitement.

The unusual rain

Although rains in October are expected, what was unusual this time was the intensity of the downpour; a record of over 200 mm of rain was noted within 48 hours in many places. Some places recorded more than 500 mm in the same period. The soil already wet from the monsoon rains was completely saturated, causing every bit of this post-monsoon rain to flow down.

In fact, October is considered a month of transition during which the southwest monsoon withdraws and gives way to the northeast monsoon, which brings lower temperatures and sets conditions for westerlies to interfere with local weather, bringing rain and snow in the winter. However, conditions for the onset of the northeast monsoon this year were expected to develop only around October 25. Therefore, the unusual western disturbance after the withdrawal of the southeast monsoon and prior to the onset of the northeast monsoon has caught weather experts by surprise.

The story, unfortunately, doesn't end there. Despite not being the only rain in the post-monsoon period, this event raises questions concerning our capacity to understand the changing nature of rainfall in the Himalaya. What we learnt from the Melamchi disaster early this year was that the monsoon had climbed to higher altitudes, something we also saw in Manang. Now, the western disturbance, when combined with the development of low pressure in the Bay of Bengal, has brought unexpected rain. Climate change has exasperated these changes faster than expected.

The nature of climatic conditions responsible for rain seems to have been altered for good; with warming oceans and added atmospheric moisture due to global warming, we'll continue to witness these changes in the weather system which brings rain to our region.

On the response front, none of the efforts undertaken by the government to address the impacts of climate change seems to match the ferocity with which damage has started to occur. We were helpless in Melamchi, and we remained so after the October rains as well. With such a limited understanding of the emerging changes and our stagnant institutional capacity, we are woefully underprepared for the grim future awaiting us.

The government agencies responsible for tackling climate change as an emerging challenge moving forward are happy to run a few projects and assume that the threat has been addressed. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes’ special report in 2018 warned that we were already enduring the consequences of 1 degree Celsius of warming as we witnessed more extreme events. Had government agencies taken the threat seriously and anticipated the problem getting worse, perhaps we would've learnt to address the dangers more holistically. After all, climate change is described as an existential threat to humanity. We need to understand the gravity of that assessment.

We also need to understand that projects have their limitations. A watershed project under the title Building Climate Resilience of Watersheds in Mountain Eco-Regions, with grant assistance of $28 million, was implemented for five years from 2014 to 2019 in Achham, Baitadi, Bajhang, Bajura, Dadeldhura and Doti. The project was expected to improve climate resilience in mountain communities. But this same region witnessed massive loss due to floods and landslides. In Bajhang alone, 24 went missing, and a landslide destroyed several houses while more than 100 families were displaced. Watershed interventions are supposed to help manage rainwater and reduce floods and landslides. But the October disasters show the huge gap between emerging realities and the effectiveness of our interventions.

We've entered a new world with unpredictable weather. The change is likely to produce more surprises in the years ahead. With our current working style, it's frightening to even imagine how we'll cope with the problem 10 years from now.

Agriculture as the start

The solutions aren't novel or grand—we merely need to shift our focus to the particulars. Development sectors, whether agriculture, infrastructure or energy or environment, need to recognise climate change as a central issue hampering their sectoral goals and integrate climate change within their plans and annual programmes to respond to the impacts. The sectors also need to coordinate their actions, which is easier said than done. It’s time to focus on the difficult-to-achieve concepts of coordination of sectoral responses to address climate change threats.

Effective coordination can be achieved by taking agriculture as the starting point because farming is a common occupation and is at the centre of our economic activities. Looking at the climate impacts through an agriculture lens encourages us to monitor agriculture's flood and drought issues. We can then link it to other areas; for example, how does a road affect floods or initiate debris flow in the mountains and so on. Since agriculture is local, most importantly, this approach helps us understand weather phenomena over smaller areas, make forecasts area-specific rather than region-specific, and reinforce infrastructure to withstand the unexpected shocks.

Refocusing on these matters to protect agriculture would be more effective in garnering community support when facing climate challenges in every other sector that affects agriculture. If successful, we could help civilians who bear the brunt of environmental collapse in more tangible ways.