Kathmandu Participatory River Monitoring System (KAPRIMO) officially inaugurated

On the 28th January, 2007 (14th Magh, 2063) the official inauguration of the newly developed river monitoring system of Kathmandu Valley took place in Teku Dovan. Honorable secretary Mr. Bal Krishna Prasai from the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology and Mr. Giap Dang from the Delegation of the European Union to Nepal together with other distinguished guests (Director General of Department of Hydrology and Meteorology and Director General of Department), Chief executive officers from KMC, LSMC attended the ceremony and officially inaugurated the system.

The program was followed by the project information display and river photo exhibition. The monitoring system was developed under the EU co-funded project KAPRIMO (Kathmandu Participatory River Monitoring) and will be jointly operated by the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology and the municipalities of Kathmandu and Lalitpur. The local project partner ECCA in partnership with the lead organization Adelphi Research, Germany and ITC, Netherlands assist the relevant authorities in various project activities. Monitoring results as well as information on different project steps can be obtained from the website www.kaprimo.org.

The implementation of a sustainable monitoring system for the Bagmati catchment is a milestone in environmental conservation in Kathmandu Valley because reliable information about river quality and pollution sources is the prerequisite and thus the first step in the process of the improvement of river quality. The permanent recording of river data will reveal both danger and chances for the rivers through the visualization of positive or negative effects of activities with relevance to the rivers. This is providing the basis for political decisions as well as capital investment.

The monitoring system was kept simple and is based on low investment as well as low operational costs. River segment teams, comprising volunteers from different stakeholders together with the competent local municipalities partly take over the responsibilities for sampling and analyzing activities. The Department of Hydrology and Meteorology will be the overall coordination unit of the monitoring system.

The rehabilitation process of the river environment will be supported by the project through the identification of two follow-up projects. The detailed documentation of the project approach and the different elements of KAPRIMO will facilitate the integration of a river monitoring system in other parts of Nepal or South Asia. The project and hence the monitoring system are in full compliance with the Water Resource Strategy of Nepal that was published by the Nepalese government in January 2002.

Since the official Kick off meeting in January 2006, KAPRIMO has completed the household survey of local stakeholders, various awareness events, formation of an advisory committee board, laboratory set up in DHM’s existing lab, training on River water monitoring to volunteer teams and GIS Application to River Monitoring for authorities from DHM, KMC, LSMC, DoLIDAR, MoEST, Kirtipur, Bhaktapur and Thimi municipalities.    

Yogendra Chitrakar, Director /Team Manager (ECCA-Nepal)
Rainer Mutschler, Project Coordinator (Adelphi Research-Germany)