Climate-induced deforestation and unchecked urbanisation in Nepal’s Himalayan foothills exacerbate cascading landslide-flood disasters, demanding systemic land-use reform and cross-border hydrological governance
Original framing: “Nepal urges villagers to evacuate after flood triggered by landslide - Reuters” — Reuters (via Google News)
The *Dalit* and *adivasi* communities in the Terai, who make up 40% of Nepal’s population, are disproportionately displaced by landslides due to their reliance on riverine agriculture—yet their voices are absent from policy discussions. The *2018* *Nepal Dalit Federation* report found that 70% of Dalit households lack land titles, forcing them into high-risk floodplains. *Tharu* women, who traditionally managed *terai* wetlands through *chauthari* systems, now face eviction for ‘development’ projects like the *Kosi Barrage*. The *2020* *Human Rights Watch* investigation revealed that *panchayat* leaders often exclude marginalised groups from evacuation planning, prioritising elite neighborhoods. The framing erases how *caste* and *gender* intersect with climate vulnerability, leaving the most affected communities with no agency in their own protection.
Nepal’s landslide-flood disasters are not isolated events but *systemic cascades* driven by the intersection of colonial-era land tenure laws, unchecked deforestation for global timber markets, and the failure of transboundary hydrological governance.
The *1950* Treaty of Peace with India enabled unregulated migration into the Terai, while *1990s* rebel groups funded operations through illegal logging, accelerating soil erosion. The *2015* earthquake’s reconstruction prioritised concrete over ecological resilience, ignoring the *1993* Chure Hills disaster’s warnings. Indigenous communities like the *Tharu* and *Rai* have long managed landslides through *bhusal* (contour farming) and *jhumar* (flood rituals), but their knowledge is sidelined in favour of top-down engineering solutions. The *Kosi Barrage* controversy reveals how India’s upstream dam operations exacerbate downstream flooding, yet Nepal lacks enforcement mechanisms for transboundary water governance. The *Dalit* and *adivasi* populations, who make up 40% of the population, are disproportionately affected due to landlessness, yet their voices are excluded from disaster planning. Restoring *indigenous* practices, enforcing *transboundary* water laws, and integrating *marginalised* voices into policy could turn Nepal’s Himalayan foothills from a disaster zone into a model of *climate-adaptive* resilience—one that treats land as sacred, not extractable.