Grey Green Structures as a Treatment to Climate Induced Disasters

Nepal as a mountainous country is highly vulnerable to the impact of climate change and specially, erratic rainfall patterns are observed in Nepal. Such scenario rainfall patterns along with degraded ecosystems will result in climate changed induced disasters i.e. flash floods, landslides, slope failures and erosion. Such disaster can result destruction of rural infrastructures i.e. roads, loss of property and even human lives. The EbA Project has prioritized grey green or bio-engineer structures i.e. engineered structures supplemented by ‘green’ structures to address the losses from climate induced disasters and provide adequate protection. In Nepal, such structures are not new and have been in used since the early 1970’s and have been pivotal soil conservation and management practices. Such structures have been adopted with the technical support from District Soil Conservation Offices and utilizing the traditional knowledge from local community. This case study analyzes the contribution of such grey green structures put in place along with river bank of the Harpan Stream in Kaski District to protect the agriculture land at Ghatichhina. The result highlights that the stream would have ravaged 90 square meter of productive land annually had it not been constructed at the site while the economic analysis of the structure shows that it generates an NPV of NRs 506,600 over a period of 20 years including the benefits of avoided damage at Phewa Lake due to the reduced siltation in the dam while about 40 percent of the total cost is borne by these farmers, but the analysis shows that about 92 percent of the benefits accrue to the land owners.