Issue Brief – Status and Implementation of Transboundary River Agreements on The Kosi River in Nepal

The Kosi River is infamous in parts of Nepal and India, where the river – due to its erratic and shifting course – has caused frequent floods affecting thousands of families and inundating several hectares of agricultural land in both countries. In 1954, India and Nepal signed the Kosi Agreement to enable construction of a barrage and embankments as flood control and mitigation measures. Subsequently a revised version of the Agreement was signed in 1966.This issue brief—the first in a series of three—summarizes the findings of a study conducted by the Institute for Social and Environmental Transition-Nepal (ISET-N)1 on the availability and accessibility of hydrological data and information on the Kosi River in Nepal. Specifically, it reviews the status and implementation of bilateral agreements on the Kosi River and assesses the extent to which information on the agreements is publicly available.

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