LocationsFrom bamboo watchtowers to digital alerts, Nepal has strengthened resilience through early warning and action.
Where Every Minute Matters
June 8, 2026
Photo: UNDP Nepal
There was a time when flood preparedness in Nepal relied on a simple but courageous system.
Along riverbanks, communities built machans—raised bamboo or wooden watchtowers—from which volunteers monitored rising water levels during the monsoon. As rivers swelled upstream, observers would climb the towers and yell through mics to relay warnings to nearby settlements, giving families a narrow window to move to safety.
Women disseminating early warning information to local community members using a loudspeaker in Nepal.
Photo: Practical action
While these traditional methods reflected strong community resilience, they provided only limited time for people to protect themselves, their families, and their livelihoods.
Today, Nepal’s disaster preparedness landscape has been transformed.
Photo: UNDP Nepal
Through the Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (MHEWS), people at risk can now receive alerts based on real-time detection, monitoring, analysis, and forecasting. Automated weather stations, flood sensors, data acquisition systems, and community sirens provide timely warnings that enable communities to act before disasters strike.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), working closely with the government of Nepal and local communities, has played a key role in supporting this transformation. UNDP has helped install automated climate data collection systems and early warning systems across seven watersheds including high-altitude watersheds of Nepal while strengthening the institutional capacity needed to sustain and expand these systems.
Photo: UNDP Nepal
The impact is increasingly visible. Communities now receive warnings with enough time to move themselves, their livestock, and valuable belongings to safer locations. Over the past decade, improved preparedness has contributed to saving lives. While the number of reported flood and inundation incidents increased from 65 in 2014 to 399 in 2024, annual casualties declined from 129 to 91(Source: NDRRMA) during the same period, demonstrating the value of stronger early warning and preparedness systems.
“Early warning systems in Nepal have evolved significantly since the early 2000s, when they largely relied on river observers and sirens,” said Mandira Singh Shrestha, Climate Change Specialist at International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). “Today, real-time water-level sensors, data acquisition units, advanced forecasting tools, and earth observation technologies are improving both the accuracy and timeliness of warnings across the country. Support from institutions such as UNDP has played a crucial role in enabling this transformation.”
Photo: UNDP Nepal
For UNDP, strengthening early warning systems is part of a broader commitment to reducing disaster risks and protecting vulnerable communities.
“Early warning systems are ultimately about saving lives,” said Deepak KC, Programme Analyst for Climate Change and Resilience at UNDP Nepal. “Wherever disasters occur, UNDP works alongside communities and institutions such as the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) to strengthen preparedness. Over time, these interventions have evolved from basic warning mechanisms to real-time alerts that enable faster and more effective action and provide greater lead time.”
Photo: UNDP Nepal
This work is particularly important in Nepal, where nearly 80 percent of the population is vulnerable to disasters. Climate change is intensifying risks from floods, landslides, droughts, glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs), and forest fires, while earthquakes and health emergencies continue to pose additional threats.
Photo: UNDP Nepal
Since 2008, UNDP has partnered with Nepal’s key disaster management institutions, including the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, NDRRMA, local governments, civil society organizations, and communities to strengthen disaster preparedness and response systems.
Photo: UNDP Nepal
One notable example is the Imja Glacial Lake Flood Risk Reduction project in Solukhumbu. In 2016, UNDP, with support from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), helped reduce the risk of a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) by lowering the water level of Imja Lake by 3.4 metres through the construction of an artificial drainage channel. Early warning systems were also installed in six key settlements along the 50-kilometre high-risk corridor of the Imja–Dudh Koshi River, helping safeguard more than 90,000 people as well as thousands of visitors travelling through the region.
Photo: UNDP Nepal
Building on this success, UNDP and the Government of Nepal, with support from the Green Climate Fund (GCF), are implementing an initiative to strengthen community resilience to GLOF risks across Nepal's mountain regions. The project will expand and upgrade hazard monitoring and early warning systems, reduce water levels in four high-risk glacial lakes, namely Thulagi, Lower Barun, Lumding Tsho, and Hongu-2. The initiative will also enhance the preparedness and response capacities of national and local authorities, first responders, and communities, ultimately benefiting more than 2.2 million people living in climate-vulnerable communities.
Photo: UNDP Nepal
Nepal’s journey from bamboo machans and manual river observations to sophisticated real-time forecasting and early warning systems demonstrates how innovation, partnership, and community action can strengthen resilience.
As climate risks continue to grow, investments in early warning systems are doing more than improving forecasts. They are providing communities with precious time to act, protecting lives and livelihoods, and helping build a safer and more resilient future for Nepal.
Photo: UNDP Nepal