Current situation of drinking water and water management in Nepal.

According to the Department of Water Supply and Sewerage, in Nepal even though an estimated 80% of the total population has access to drinking water, it is not safe as supplied water is often polluted. The surface water is polluted by industry and domestic waste along with the discharge of untreated sewage from tightly packed residential neighborhoods. In addition, due to the increasing population and establishments, surface water sources alone have become inadequate to service everyone.

In some of the rural regions of Nepal, communities still rely on getting their drinking water from tube wells. Recently, one of the major concerns in these regions, especially in the region of Terai, is groundwater contamination from arsenic. As only 27 percent of the population has access to basic sanitation, those without access rely on local surface water sources like rivers for bathing and washing clothes. As a result, Nepal faces a high number of water-borne diseases such as diarrhea, dysentery, typhoid, gastroenteritis, and cholera.

The average annual rainfall of Nepal is about 1600mm and the most populated city Kathmandu has 2812 mm of precipitation falls annually but because of a lack of storm management plans and technology, Nepal is unable to use stormwater as a source.

The solution to these problems of unsafe water and water shortage is proper storage tanks and filtration systems.