Participatory watershed management

A term paper on

PARTICIPATORY WATERSHED MANAGEMENT

Submitted to
Dr. Keshav pandey

January, 2010

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Table of content
1 Introduction ................................................................................................................1
2. Background ...............................................................................................................4
3. Overview of land degradation in developing countries ......................................................5
4. Participatory watershed management and its evolution .....................................................6
5. Evolution of Participatory Watershed Management Program in Nepal ................................8
6. Approaches to Watershed Management in Developing Countries of South Asia ...................9
i. Sectoral vs. integrated approach .............................................................................................. 9 ii. Top-down approach vs. bottom-up approach ....................................................................... 10 iii. Participatory Approach ........................................................................................................ 12
7. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………… 14
References……………………………………………………………………………………… 16

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1 Introduction
Nepal, a mountainous country with thousands of sub-watersheds, is heavily dependent on its natural resource base. The subject of water interests everyone. Water meets human needs in a number of ways. In Nepal the bulk of the water, tapped from rivers, groundwater, natural lakes and springs, is utilized for irrigation purposes. Owing to the rapid growth of population, insufficient agricultural production, low off-farm sector production and concomitant developmental changes, the natural resources particularly public lands and forest lands are being over exploited to meet the basic needs of the people. This has been brought rapid changes in the

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