Spring water emerge to the earth’s surface from an aquifers and is considered a pure form of water for potable and non-potable use. It is the primary water source for people in Nepal’s mid-hills, who use it for drinking, washing, livestock feeding, and irrigation. The springs of Nepal, however, are degrading, both in quantity and quality, as a result of natural causes such as earthquakes and climate change, as well as anthropogenic causes such as infrastructure development, pollution, and overexploitation. The local communities that rely on the springs for drinking, irrigation, and other domestic water uses suffer due to this degradation. The Karnali River Basin’s springs and water sources are also reported to be degrading in terms of water quality and discharge, owing to natural as well as anthropogenic causes.
The consortium of Iset Nepal Services Pvt. Ltd., Kathmandu University’s Aquatic Ecology Centre (AEC), and Hydro Lab Pvt. Ltd. in collaboration with two local organizations, the Karnali Integrated Rural Development and Research Center (KIRDARC)-Nepal and the Rural Development Centre (RuDeC)-Nepal, with financial support from the USAID Karnali Water Activity undertook a project titled “Spring and Water Source Assessment (SSA) in selected Local Governments (LGs) across Watersheds of Karnali River Basin” to assess the water sources of the Karnali River Basin. Ltd., Local enumerators from the watersheds of Rara Khatyad, Tila Karnali, Middle Karnali, and Lower Karnali were trained and mobilized for the SSA. The proposed assignment area included 29 Local Governments (LGs) from the Karnali Basin’s four watersheds: Rara Khatyad, Tila Karnali, Middle Karnali, and Lower Karnali. Three teams were formed from the five consortium organizations under the leadership of the project coordinator: an expert’s team, a project management team, and a field team.
Local partners KIRDARC-Nepal and RuDeC-Nepal were in charge of identifying local enumerators in close collaboration with the LGs’ officials and representatives. The trained local enumerators conducted community-level consultations, visited each spring, gathered data (e.g. GPS, discharge, stressors identification, and ranking, etc.) at the field level, entered the data into DAI Collect, and collected water samples for laboratory analysis.
Water quality assessments were conducted on three levels: on-site, in field-mobile mini laboratories, and at the Dhulikhel AEC laboratory. In total, 32 field-mobile mini laboratories were set up across the four watersheds to assess water quality parameters. AEC, KU laboratory technicians, performed laboratory analysis to determine physicochemical and microbiological parameters. Altogether 17 water quality parameters were evaluated, including physicochemical, microbiological, and heavy metals. Among those parameters, pH and temperature were measured on-site and in field-mobile mini laboratories.
The SSA in the LGs across the four watersheds produced an inventory of all the sources located in those LGs, including their locations and other details such as discharge, stressors, and water quality status. The product would help in the planning, monitoring, and management of spring water sources for diverse purposes in the LGs of the four watersheds. The assessment would benefit the LGs’ Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) programs and Water Use Management Plan (WUMP) creation activities.
This report presents the results of an inventory of the springs and other water sources, classification of their status, identification of the dried springs and determination of water quality status and microbial status for the spring and water sources across the LGs of Rara Khatyad, Tila Karnali, Middle Karnali, and Lower Karnali watersheds of the Karnali Basin. Altogether 6646 sources were identified, out of which 89 sources were dried sources that need additional hydrogeological investigations to determine the causes of drying. Ten stressors (e.g. waste dumping, livestock grazing, sewage mixing, etc.) were scored to categorize the springs into three classes: good condition, moderately affected and severely affected. The results showed that 17.39% of the sources were in good condition, 79.66% were moderately affected, and 2.95% were severely affected. Similarly, based on the Water Quality Index, 85.16%, 13.89%, 0.61%, 0.14%, and 0.198% of sources were categorized as excellent, good, poor, very poor and unsuitable categories, respectively. Based on the microbial analysis, 84.66 %, 10.05%, 5.07%, and 0.21% of sources were categorized as safe, intermediate risk, high risk and very high risk, respectively. The recommendation measures to be taken for improving the status of the sources and their water quality has also been provided. Monitoring mechanisms and conservation efforts at the LG-level would help to improve and maintain these sources’ conditions and water quality.