Acknowledgements
This report synthesises the main findings from five studies of local responses to climate-related water stress and floods. The
case studies were carried out between June 2008 and September 2009 as part of the two projects ‘Too much water, too
little water – adaptation strategies to climate-induced water stress and hazards in the greater Himalayan region’, funded
by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), and ‘Himalayan climate change impact and
adaptation assessment’ (HICIA), funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This financial support from Sweden
and Norway, which enabled important field work leading to findings on climate change and adaptation based on
evidence, is gratefully acknowledged.
The five case studies were carried out in: i) Yunnan province, China, by the Kunming Institute of Botany (KIB) in
collaboration with the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF); ii) Assam state, India, by Aaranyak; iii) Bihar state, India, by
Winrock International, India (WII); iv) the Koshi basin, Nepal, by the Institute for Social and Environmental Transition –
Nepal (ISET-N); and v) Chitral District, Pakistan, by the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP).
Overall coordination of the study was provided by ICIMOD with support and guidance from a team from the Centre for
International Climate and Environmental Research, Oslo (CICERO), UNEP-GRID Arendal, Stockholm Environment Institute
(SEI), International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), and Institute for Social and Environmental Transition
(ISET).
The case studies are accompanied by studies of policies influencing local people’s ability to adapt. This work is ongoing
by ISET, ICRAF, and the National Institute for Disaster Management (NIDM), India, and only provisional findings have been
incorporated in this report.
We are most thankful to the excellent editing, text processing, and layout work provided by Julian Gonsalves, Frances
Klatzel, Dharma Ratna Maharajan, Joyce Mendez, A Beatrice Murray, Greta Rana, and Asha Kaji Thaku.
The following people were part of the core team of this study.
• ICIMOD: Mats Eriksson, Julie Dekens, Brigitte Leduc, Vijay Khadgi
• CICERO: Pål Prestrud
• UNEP-GRID Arendal: Christian Nellemann, Bjørn Kaltenborn
• SEI: Lisa Schipper
• IIED: Simon Anderson, Tighe Geoghegan
• Aaranyak: Partha Das, Dadul Chutiya, Nirupam Hazarika
• AKRSP: Shahid Nadeem, Imran Elahi, Abdul Hadi, Ihsan Uddin,
• ICRAF: Jianchu Xu, Andreas Wilkes
• ISET: Fawad Khan
• ISET-N: Ajaya Dixit, Madhukar Upadhya, Kanchan Dixit, Anil Pokhrel, Deep Raj Rai
• KIB: Yufang Su, Qiaohong Li, Yao Fu, Ma Xing
• NIDM: Rajesh Kumar Mall
• WII: Praveen Singh, Nilanjan Ghose, Nitin Chaudhary, Regina Hansda