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US Aid Cut: Nepal Landslide Peril Grows
3 Sep
Summary
- US funding for Nepal landslide monitoring was cut in January 2025.
- A recent disaster killed over 1,100 people in Nepal and China.
- Climate change increases landslide and flood risks in the Himalayas.
A vital natural hazards program in Nepal, aimed at identifying landslide hotspots, had its funding severed by the Trump administration in January 2025. Tragically, just over a year later, a devastating glacier and rock landslide in the Himalayas triggered massive floods, resulting in more than 1,100 fatalities in Nepal and China.
This disaster starkly illustrates the escalating peril faced by communities in mountain regions like the Himalayas due to global warming. Increasing temperatures destabilize glaciers and heighten the risk of catastrophic events such as landslides and flash floods. The absence of robust early warning systems, like those Project SERVIR-Hindu Kush Himalaya was developing, leaves these regions critically vulnerable.
The defunded Project SERVIR-Hindu Kush Himalaya, a collaboration involving NASA and USAID, had been working since 2010 to monitor slopes and predict extreme rainfall impacts. While some of its data programs continue, crucial efforts like flood inundation mapping and detailed slope motion detection were halted. Experts emphasize the urgent need for sustained funding to develop critical early warning systems, warning that similar devastating events are likely to recur in this geologically exposed and densely populated area.
