Spring Revival in the Mid-Hills of the Himalaya: A Socioeconomic Assessment Using Benefit–Cost Analysis


Authors :G.Butte, K.Khadka, A.Aldinucci, B.Macaulay, S.Buchar


This page is a visual narration based of the article we wrote on an socio-economic valuation of spring revival activities in Nepal.

Given that academic writing is usually not the most popular mean of communication, I tried to explore the possibility of summarising the article in a more approachable visual format. Enjoy!





Context The Himalaya is usually associated with high mountains, covered in perennial glaciers. Water sources are therefore understood as being of glacial origin.

From a water perspective, mountains have been defined as “water towers” because they capture water, store and release water by gravity to lower areas.

In reality, there is a lower area, referred as mid-hills that is composed of mountain that reach 2500m and more, that do not host glacier nor can access glacial water.

Population in these areas uses water from mountain springs or, in some cases, by pumping from water bodies present at the bottom of the valley.

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Storage Downhill delivery Precipitation

Storage Downhill delivery Mid-hills Too low for glaciers,too high for rivers Precipitation

In recent years, mountain springs have been found declining across the Himalaya. For this purpose revival activities have been designed and implemented.research tried to run a cost-benefit analysis on these revival activities with two case study in Nepal and two more generic scenarios.

Costs were identified by looking at records of the revival activities carried in the two study sites.The biggest cost comes from the hydro-geological mapping of the “water tower” (C_lab_wt).

Since cost of mapping are shared across all the springs, reviving several springs can reduce the cost per spring.

Cost of implementation (labour and material) are rather minimal.

Project costs such as management (C_lab), cost of capital (C_fin) and operation and management (C_om) play a role in the overall resource need.

In one scenario the operation costs was significantly higher due to the installation of a water pump.

Mapping benefits was more challenging. We used published research, direct observations and focus groups in the communities living near the springs.

A first group of benefits comes from the increase of water flow.

In some cases, revived springs become an additional water source. This can bring ecosystem benefits and release tensions for water allocation.

Lastly, the project itself can bring benefits in terms of capabilities.

Benefits from time saving were estimated as the highest.

Followed by ecosystem benefits that would be very context dependent.

Some benefits related to agricultural production due to increased water were also found.

Lastly, health benefits from access to clean water.

The comparison between costs and benefits showed that in 3 out of 4 scenarios, benefits were higher.

In one scenario (BHA) costs were higher than benefits due to the low usage of the spring.

Using more common parameters as Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR) and Internal rate of return (IRR) showed promising results.

This study, should be replicated in several other sites since the impact of a water spring is highly dependent on local context. Despite this limitation, it shows that spring revival can be a solutions that also brings economic benefits.

Health benefitsProductivity benefitsEcosystem benefitTime savingEmployment opportunitiesIncreased social capitalSpringrevivalactivitiesActivitiesResultsOutcomesBenefits

Increased spring water flowHealth benefitsEcosystem benefitTime savingInfiltration techniquesActivitiesResultsOutcomesBenefitsProductivity benefitsEmployment opportunitiesSpringrevivalactivitiesIncreased spring useAvoid water purchaseES improvementGW rechargeTrigger infrastructural upgradeIncreased water at HH

Infiltration techniquesActivitiesResultsOutcomesBenefitsIncreased spring water flowHealth benefitsEcosystem benefitTime savingProductivity benefitsEmployment opportunitiesIncreased spring useAvoid water purchaseES improvementGW rechargeTrigger infrastructural upgradeIncreased water at HHSpringrevivalactivitiesIncreased social capitalAlternative water sourceLand value increaseReduce conflict

Infiltration techniquesActivitiesResultsOutcomesBenefitsIncreased spring water flowHealth benefitsEcosystem benefitTime savingProductivity benefitsEmployment opportunitiesIncreased spring useAvoid water purchaseES improvementGW rechargeTrigger infrastructural upgradeIncreased water at HHSpringrevivalactivitiesIncreased social capitalAlternative water sourceLand value increaseReduce conflictBetter context knowledgeCapacity buildingAcquiredtransferable skillsInvolvement ofmarginalised communitiesMapping,training,workshops

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Credits

Coding using Quarto, R, Closeread extension, ggplot package. Coded by Giacomo Butte.

Images of mountains taken from Google Earth, diagrams taken from Giacomo Butte, Karishma Khadka, Alice Aldinucci, Bobby Macaulay, Sanjeev Bhuchar “Spring Revival in the Mid-Hills of the Himalaya: A Socioeconomic Assessment Using Benefit–Cost Analysis,” Mountain Research and Development, 44(4), R12-R25, (6 December 2024). Built with R, Quarto and closeread extensions.