Himalaya is the most densely populated and rapidly urbanizing mountain (Grainger et al. 2021). This makes it highly vulnerable to a variety of natural disasters (Wester et al. 2019). Poverty, lack of infrastructure, poor accessibility and constraints of livelihood, pose serious challenges in reducing the vulnerability of natural disasters and mitigating their impacts (Huggel et al. 2020). Climate change has further increased the frequency and intensity of extreme events, such as high-intensity rainfall increasing the severity and occurrence of flash-floods and landslides in Himalaya (IPCC 2021). The inadequacy of hydro-meteorological monitoring network, gender inequalities and non-availability of early warning system at watershed level increased the vulnerability of communities to climate change-induced natural disasters (Shekhar et al. 2017). The work aims to develop Community based flood early warning system which provides vulnerable downstream communities with sufficient lead time to save lives, assets and livelihoods; and involve and empower local communities, particularly rural women and grass-root institutions in the observation and monitoring of climatic information and development of early warning system, in Middle Himalayan watershed. low-cost community-based weather monitoring stations were installed in 5 villages situated in the upstream area of the watershed, community representatives including women have been educated and trained in making observations and generating flood risk information, and communicating this to downstream villages using mobile phones. This helped in reducing the loss of 955 human lives and 5795 livestock from disasters during the last 10 years. It was observed that it can make the difference between survival and disaster if implemented jointly by local disaster management authorities and village-based community institutions across the Himalayan mountains.
Mots clés : High-intensity rainfall|flash-floods|empowering local communities|mobile phones|community-institutions
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