Updating and Upgrading Water Resources Information System and Assessment of Basin / Sub Basin Water Availability (IWRMP / WECS / S/ QCBS-7)

The World Bank has provided grant assistance to the Government of Nepal (GoN) for implementing the Irrigation and Water Resources Management Project (IWRMP) to improve irrigated agriculture productivity and management of selected irrigation schemes and enhance institutional capacity for integrated water resources management. The project has four components. Component 'C' of the project "Institutional and Policy Support for Improved Water Management" will help provide more effective and streamlined water resources management services at the national level and within selected basins through institutional strengthening of relevant institutions, namely the water and energy commission secretariat (WECS) and Department of Irrigation (DoI). This component will address sector issues, in relation to identify an appropriate regulatory framework and sufficient institutional capacity for undertaken effective planning and inter-sectoral allocation of resources. Such an approach is anticipated to provide the legal, technical, managerial and institutional instruments and mechanisms to enable the implementation of the activities identified by the Water Resources Strategy (WRS) 2002, and National Water Plan (NWP) 2005 in line with the Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) Principles.

The main objective of the Water Resources Information Centre at WECS is to develop and maintain national water resources database to support decision making process as well as disseminate reliable water related data and information to the users. The water assessment will support the water related agencies in preparing plans and designing the projects. The specific objectives are:

• Improve information collection and dissemination mechanisms in effective and scientific way.

• Design the basin-wide water accounting systems (Models) including rainfall runoff, river discharge simulation that can be applied for optimization.

• Design the system to integrate all water related database at national, sub-basin and basin level.

• Develop Database Management System.

There are approximately 6000 rivers and rivulets in Nepal and accordingly has numbers of river basins / sub-basins. Mahakali, Karnali, West Rapti, Gandaki, Bagmati, Kamala, Koshi, Kankai are the important river basins. During this phase of the project, water resources information system at center (Kathmandu) is upgraded and updated and water resources information system at Karnali as well as Gandaki basins is established. The system of each river basin offices were linked to the center. Similarly, the designed water assessment model is used in pilot basin and prepare model framework to replicate in Gandaki and karnali Basins.