In Nepal, artificial ponds offer drought relief despite lingering doubts

KATHMANDU — Until the summer of 2024, residents of Rajabahs village in Nepal’s southeastern Madhesh province reeled under a water shortage for more than eight years as wells and springs dried up amid extreme summer heat. “We didn’t even have enough to drink, let alone bathe or wash clothes or irrigate our fields,” farmer Kul Bahadur Adhikari remembered. “We were looking for a solution when we realized that if we could collect water from a spring which provides water during the wet season, in a pond, we can use it in the dry season,” he told Mongabay. As Nepal’s plains face severe drought, communities such as the residents of Rajabahs and the government are increasingly turning to artificial ponds as a nature-based solution for water scarcity amid experts warning that unscientific construct