Ajaya Dixit’s current work focuses on studying challenges of building resilience across boundaries and at sub-national scales. He has studied and written extensively on water resources, trans-boundary water cooperation, flood management, wash services and climate change adaptation, clean energy transition and related policy studies. In this interview with the Post’s Thira Lal Bhusal, Dixit discusses river management in Nepal’s urban areas: Where have we gone wrong in this endeavour and what can we do?

You have extensively studied river systems and have been following changes seen in river basins. How do you see recent problems caused by encroachment and rampant development activities?

We humans have lived and have to continue to live within water cycles: water evaporates from the ocean to the sky and then precipitates to the land and flows via rivers back to the ocean. Rivers that function as arteries of the land surface, sustaining humans, aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems face widespread abuses: pollution, rampant extraction of their bed and banks, fragmentation and degradation. Without rivers, we would not be who we are.

Unfortunately, we have forgotten this essence. We neglect and abuse rivers. In 1981, just after the monsoon ended, I, along with my students, walked from Sundarijal to Teku studying Bagmati rivers’ sediment. At many places, we walked on the riverbed. The river then was clean. Gradually, the river systems began to face all-round decay. I have read painful accounts of my contemporaries who remember swimming in the clean Bagmati and its tributaries. In less than 50 years, our rivers in Kathmandu Valley and other basins no longer look like rivers. I feel helpless and ache with pain at this collective failure! What state of rivers are we passing on to our next generation?

River encroachment is common across Nepal but more serious in urban areas, including in Kathmandu. How can this be stopped?

Our approach to rivers is an imitation of the trend common across South Asia, or the subcontinent, which is again largely based on the knowledge system developed in the industrialised Global North without contextualising locally. The region features waterscapes of high and punctuated rainfall during the monsoon months, rivers, wetlands, ponds, and springs, all connected with groundwater aquifers in one of the most complex landscapes of the world: the Himalaya-Ganga region.

Yet, current development endeavours subjugate water rather than respect and live with it. In 2022, the Indus River in Pakistan faced major floods with devastating consequences. Referring to these floods, a group of global scientists stated that “the impacts [of the floods] were the outcome of an outdated river management system.” This approach is primarily based on building of physical structures such as buildings, bridges and roads close to rivers interfering with their natural flows. The approach that began in the early twentieth century keeps marching on even while we are facing twenty first century water challenges.

There is an increasing trend of building corridor roads along the rivers in Kathmandu as well as other places. Is this a good or bad practice?

In Nepal, road building in the hills has earned the sobriquet of “dozer roads,” meaning politically designed roads excavated by heavy machine operators without adhering to basic engineering, social, environmental, or hydrological safeguards. Even highways built with “engineering,” such as the Mugling-Narayanghat section, face regular accidents. The sliding of the two buses in the Trishuli is the recent example. Building roads along the banks of rivers, defined as “river corridors,” is the preferred approach for improving connectivity. In the Kathmandu Valley, this is also associated with rivers shackled within concrete walls in the name of river beautification. In the monsoon, however, they all overflow as we have been seeing in the last few years and this year as well.

What will happen to these rivers 10-15 years down the line? Is there any chance of some of our rivers dying? Or, will the measures taken in recent times protect them?

All rivers must flow clean and free in selected stretches. But today, rivers are disconnected with their floodplains. Within walls and embankments, they have become conduits of filth. Many rivers are already seriously degraded. If the current trend continues, many rivers may die. I remember Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the French oceanographer, filmmaker, and author, who wrote: “Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.” Our current efforts at conserving, developing and managing rivers are grossly inadequate.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, we saw some rivers heal as human actions across the board ceased due to the lockdown. But this healing came at huge human and economic costs. The lessons, however, are clear. We must stop turning rivers into garbage cans for them to begin to heal. The onus lies on us, our activities, our governance, and the policies we make and put into practice effectively. We need new ways of imagining rivers in harmony with human needs. Otherwise, the rivers will die. If rivers die, what will become of us?

What problems may city dwellers face as a result of this continued destruction of rivers?

A 2020 analysis of rivers in Nepal found that the quality of rivers in the mid-hills and the Tarai are already deteriorating. Industries, cities, towns, and agriculture produce waste that, when disposed of in rivers untreated, cause pollution. Solid and liquid wastes produced by expanding cities and towns pollute nearby rivers, streams, and water bodies. Pollution kills aquatic life such as fish, which are sources of livelihood for many communities. Polluted rivers and water bodies degrade human and environmental health, leading to negative impacts on human livelihoods. The impacts of pollution on rivers are considerable during non-monsoon months when river discharge, and consequently the capacity of rivers to dilute waste, are low.

What should be done to conserve the rivers, at least in the present form, and stop further damages?

All rivers are a combination of water (W), energy (E), biodiversity aquatic (B), and sediment (S), represented by the acronym WEBS. In the current scheme of things, the focus is on water and energy. Aquatic ecosystems are the concern of only those working on freshwater ecosystems. They are neglected in the larger context though the state has made some provisions for conserving ecosystems. In Nepal’s Hydropower Development Policy of 2001 all hydropower plants must release 10 percent minimum flow to the downstream reaches to enable fish and other aquatic life to survive in the river.

A 2021 study of 50 hydropower plants however found that none of the plants surveyed release environmental-flows. All hydropower plants, as per their power purchasing agreements, are required to produce maximum power during the dry season. We should start by accepting the fact that rivers need clean flowing water and respecting the policies we have made. Then we must systematically introduce changes and avoid the oversights embedded in the present approach. The present approach to water development and management focused on engineering and structural solutions is based on single-disciplinary education that is blind to gender and social inclusion challenges and aquatic ecosystems. In the present approach, nobody seems to want sediment which is a natural consequence of flow within the water cycle.

To meet such an objective, we need to begin with a system of integrated knowledge that synthesises natural science, social science, and indigenous practices. By incorporating fields such as hydrology, ecology, social science-supported context-specific engineering, and indigenous knowledge and practices, we can take a comprehensive approach to water management challenges and solutions. Interdisciplinary approaches can build collaboration, innovation, and systemic decision-making and promote innovative water management for the benefit of both ecosystems and human societies.

Do you think initiatives such as river clean up campaigns run by various groups help protect these waterways?

I see such initiatives as manifestation of dissatisfaction of concerned citizens with the degradation of rivers and to bring about changes. In 1990, I was part of the Save Bagmati Campaign, which aimed to highlight the degrading state of the river. This campaign has taken many new forms, and citizen groups have begun campaigns in other rivers of Nepal. They however remain fragmented and ad-hoc. Similar campaigns in some countries have led to granting rights to rivers.

In 2017, New Zealand recognised the Whanganui River and its tributaries as legal entities, acknowledging their physical and spiritual significance as “living and indivisible” and ensuring their survival, health, and integrity to balance the needs of humans and nature. Promulgations like Living Indus (Pakistan), Namami Gange river-improvement programme (India) can offer lessons for a holistic water journey. The collective voice of concerned citizens for the integrity of rivers can be a powerful medium for policy and pathway changes. Nepal must also begin country-wide river restoration initiatives. We need more dialogue and conversation around water challenges and solutions.

As cities turn into concrete jungles, their water tables are said to be receding alarmingly. You often propose redesigning our settlements and development infrastructure in a way that wouldn’t disturb rivers’ natural courses and catchment areas. Could you elaborate?

South Asia is a region of waterscapes containing streams, ponds, wetlands, open spaces, floodplains, springs, and underground aquifers. Yet, our towns, cities, and infrastructure are planned, designed, and built to disregard water rather than live with it. As land-centric urban growth dominates, waterscapes temporarily seem to vanish but later water comes back. In Nepali we have a saying “In twelve years a stream returns”. The present practice of urban development is obsessed with concretisation, making these areas impermeable.

Rainwater, part of which would naturally infiltrate the ground, now immediately reaches the rivers already constrained by walls. The river at a downstream section immediately peaks and when the rainfall stops the river has very low discharge. Basic parameters, like the intensity of rainfall (mm per hour), are poorly recognised and used in design guidelines. The interaction of current urbanisation practices and increasing extreme rainfall, temperature and humidity rise spawned by climate change and urban heat island effects will make our urban areas as crucible of hazards, and unhealthy.

A new urban future must harmoniously integrate nature, including water bodies and wetlands, and preserve natural land cover, including traditional ponds to promote groundwater recharge. It can be further achieved by preserving green open spaces, forests, gardens, permeable “sponge” pavements, and natural waterfronts for healthier communities in sustainable cities. The starting point will be recognising cities as waterscapes. Amplified mitigation of emissions of greenhouse gases at global levels remains a critical imperative in this new future. The major impacts of climate change are evident through the water cycle.

Squatters settled along the riverbanks are taken as one of the major headaches in preserving rivers’ catchment areas. How can this issue be resolved?

The squatters and migrants to urban regions are outcomes of the present-day political economy of development. People move to cities seeking livelihood, education, and opportunities to move up the social ladder. These groups who end up living in high-risk areas are sometimes also seen as political vote banks. This issue needs to be viewed within the larger development question including generation of local employment, new livelihood opportunities and addressing insecurities of water, food, health, and education.

Recently the Supreme Court asked authorities to make septic tank and soak pit mandatory while approving building designs in order to help recharge groundwater, and a recent Cabinet meeting has banned building any structure within 40 metres on both sides of major rivers in Kathmandu, Do such measures help keep the rivers alive or is that too little too late?

Such decisions, in some way, seem to underscore the notion of giving space to rivers and maintaining their integrity. Building of septic tanks as part and parcel of new houses began in the 1970s as primary treatment units that can prevent the direct dumping of human waste into rivers and water bodies. The regular cleaning and safe disposal of waste from septic tanks are emerging questions. Rivers and waterscapes face much deeper challenges, however.

The present water development model marches on like a mighty tusker, trampling in its path communities, villagers, residents, natural ecosystems, the terrestrial and aquatic beings, and past memories. Turning that around will require those working on water and river integrity across geographical, social, disciplinary and political boundaries to join hands in seeking changes and laying the foundation for a new ethical social contract for rivers and waterscapes as a first step in that long journey.