The Hindu Kush Himalayan region encompasses an area of 4.2 million km2 of hills and mountains in the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan. With its vast expanses of snow and ice, the region it is known as the water tower of Asia, which is being significantly affected by climate change. The meltwater from Himalayan snow and ice feeds 10 large river systems of South Asia: the Amu Darya, Brahmaputra, Ganges, Indus, Irrawaddy, Mekong, Salween, Tarim, Yangtze and Yellow Rivers.

Climate change will increase the gaps between developed and developing countries, in terms of wealth, health and food security. This will make achieving goals to reduce poverty more difficult.Poor people with few assets
cannot easily recover from climate disasters or change how they make their
living. They rely heavily on agriculture, fisheries, rivers and forests. These
resources could change drastically with climate change, making these groups
much more vulnerable than wealthier people. Additional factors, such as health problems

This paper examines the vulnerability situation of people in the Charlands of Bangladesh. These are sandbars that emerge as islands within the river channel or as attached land to the riverbanks as a result of the dynamics of erosion and accretion in the rivers. The Charlands, or Chars, are home to some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in Bangladesh and are particularly prone to the effects of frequent climatic shocks such as floods, droughts and cyclones. The main objectives of this paper are to:

Around one-sixth of the world’s population is dependant on glaciers and seasonal snow packs for their water supply. But climate change is disrupting the annual flow of water downstream from snowy mountainous regions, says this paper. The hydrological changes taking place will impact on future water availability, and these impacts are likely to be severe.As global temperatures increase, less winter precipitation falls as snow and the melting of winter snow occurs earlier in spring.

This issue of ETFRN News contains more than 20 wide-ranging articles on forests and climate change. The topics covered include: (1) the international policies on tropical forests under the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol; (2) country-level REDD experiences; (3) different forest management practices; (4) various climate change adaptation strategies for forest sector; (5) landscape restoration practices and (6) various forest carbon business approaches.

This paper describes the flood risks faced by Surat, one of India’s most successful and also most flood-prone cities. The city is located on the Tapi River and faces flood risks not only from heavy precipitation in and around the city but also from heavy precipitation upstream and from high tides downstream. Reducing the risks from upstream depends on better water management in a water catchment area and dam reservoir located far outside the city authority’s jurisdiction and in another state.

This document is prepared with the aim of providing a framework for development of climate resilience strategy for the city of Indore. It has been developed based on interaction with city stakeholders, sector studies conducted to understand different dimensions of current situation, information from secondary literature, and through conduct of risk to resilience workshop. The City Resilience Strategy, is aimed at city managers and people at large. This document is based on the current situation and has a scope for updation to reflect emerging trends over time.