Is there a progressive flood risk management in Nepal? A synthesis based on the perspective of a half-century (1971–2020) flood outlook

One of the most common and severe natural hazards, flood has been intensified by anthropogenic climate change in many mountain regions affecting socioeconomic conditions during the twenty-first century. The study synthesized the past 50 years (1971–2020) flood loss data; then generated district-wise flood loss spatial maps and explored flood loss mitigation gaps in diverse topography of Nepal Himalaya through literature reviews. Over the past 50 years, on an average, all disasters together caused two deaths per day while more than 300 families got affected daily in Nepal. The proportion of flood disaster alone found 11.43% flood occurrences, 9.33% fatalities, 38.42% missing, 0.75% injury, 61.60% family suffering, and 10.16% property damages. Compared to the 1970s, the number of flood occurrence has increased to more than six folds causing four times human fatalities in the post 2000s. While acknowledging the population growth, the flood loss still shows increasing trend, but the incremental rate is found reduced to almost half. District-wise flood loss spatial maps depict the highest number of flood occurrences in Jhapa while Sarlahi, Surkhet, Chitwan, Mahottari, Sunsari, and Bardiya districts experienced the highest number of peoples’ fatalities, missing, injuries, family suffering, fully and partially damages of privately-owned houses, respectively. Although proactive legislations are promulgated, our study found no subsequent reduction in flood loss arguing no progression in holistic flood risk management in Nepal. Our synthesis and identified research gaps highlight the urgent need for adopting evidence-based basin-scale approach to develop effective and sustainable flood mitigation measures.