KATHMANDU – The Centre for Integrated Urban Development (CIUD) and HELVETAS Nepal organized the latest session of Urban Dabali on 30 July 2026 at Ye De Sanskritik Bhawan (Cultural House of Kathmandu City), Dharmapath, bringing together representatives of government line agencies, academic institutions and development partners to examine the growing crisis of urban flooding in the Kathmandu Valley.
The session for July was titled “Urban Floods in Nepal-From Recurring Crisis to Resilient Cities”. The program was conducted in coordination with Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC).
Mr. Padma Sunder Joshi, Urban Development Expert, Vice President of Administration and Finance at Madan Bhandari University of Science and Technology, and Chairman of CIUD, in his key note presentation reasoned
that a river cannot be trained beyond its natural path. Drawing on the example of the Rhine River, which was straightened over the past two centuries and is now the subject of restoration efforts after decades of worsening flood impacts on riverside cities, Mr. Joshi warned that Kathmandu Valley is repeating the same mistake. While traditional Newar settlements maintained sophisticated drainage systems, decades of encroachment have erased
rivers, rivulets and ponds across the valley including Ban Ganga, Til Ganga and Paleswa. Using satellite imagery of the Nakkhu and Chobhar Galchhi areas spanning 2003 to the present, he showed how the straightening of
waterways and encroachment for roads and housing directly contributed to the catastrophic flooding ofbSeptember 2024, and cautioned that rising retaining walls paired with a shrinking river width along the Bagmati
River are compounding the risk.
Mr. Joshi called for an investigation into how encroachment along riverbanks was permitted in the first place,band for both corrective and preventive measures at the local and higher levels of government.
PANEL DISCUSSION
A panel comprising Ar. Yek Raj Adhikari (Deputy Director General, Department of Urban Development and Building Construction), Dr. Pawan Bhattarai (Coordinator and Assistant Professor, Water Resources Engineering Programme, Institute of Engineering, Pulchowk Campus) and Mr. Machakaji Maharjan (Project
Director, High Powered Committee for Integrated Development of Bagmati Civilization), followed the keynote
with an open floor discussion. The panel discussion was facilitated by Ms. Rija Joshi, Executive Director, Centre for Integrated Urban Development.
Mr. Maharjan committed his organization to tackling river overflow through both legal and on-site interventions, including converting UN Park fully to public park use, reducing the height of retaining walls, and proposing a minimum bridge length based on hydrological study.
Dr. Bhattarai stressed that both fluvial and pluvial flooding, alongside contributing factors of climate change, need to be addressed together. He noted that research from the Institute of Engineering often fails to inform
policy due to weak coordination with government bodies, and proposed a dedicated elective course on urban
flooding for engineering students, wider use of software and animation for public awareness, and rainwater
capture through bio swales infiltration into underground tanks for later reuse.
Ar. Adhikari stressed that addressing urban flooding requires close coordination among federal, provincial and local governments, technical institutions, development partners and local communities. He called for stronger collaboration among stakeholders, active community engagement throughout the planning process, and continuous technical capacity-building of municipalities, and identified the proposed Kathmandu Valley 2040
vision as an important opportunity to mainstream integrated urban flood management into future development.
Mr. Joshi further explained that high retaining structures and isolating watersheds is also damaging biodiversity across the valley along with urban flooding. He acknowledged groundwater recharge and rainwater harvesting as the most effective solution available, noting that nearly all of the valley with very few exception is suitable for it, but cautioned that incentive schemes alone have proven insufficient and that sustained, qualitative public awareness campaigns are needed to drive household adoption. He further recommended that government acquire private land for public use where needed, and argued that planning and implementation should never rest with a single organization. Instead, he called for a robust coordinating body to bring the valley’s various planning and implementing agencies under one umbrella.
Around sixty participants attended the talk program. The programme concluded with an interactive discussion involving participants from government agencies, development partners, municipalities, universities, professional organizations, and community groups. The discussions underscored that building flood-resilient cities requires integrated land-use planning, protection of river corridors and floodplains, restoration of natural drainage systems, promotion of rainwater harvesting and groundwater recharge, and evidence-based decisionmaking supported by stronger institutional coordination. As per the participants view, the talk program was
framed in appropriate context and is very fruitful for improving urban governance system.
