NUTRITION BASED WATER REQUIREMENT

Abstract

As we know about 31 percent of total population of Nepal lies below the poverty line and most of people are not getting the minimum nutritious food. But for future planning it should be taken in consideration. In this dissertation considering protein as an index for nutritious diet, the water requirement of Nepal and study area for producing crops to meet the requirement of nutritious food for projected population by 2051 is estimated. While estimating the future water requirement we cannot ignore the water requirement for other sectors like domestic, industry, hydropower production and environment. The following two approaches are used to estimate the future water requirement for irrigation and other sectors explained above. (i) Comprehensive nutrition requirement approach. (ii) Macroeconomic approach using GDP. In first approach the minimum weighted nutrition requirement and comprehensive nutrition requirement is found out for per capita per day. Among two the comprehensive nutrition requirement is found appropriate. The macroeconomic approach is considered due to the idea that with rise in economic status, the nutrition level of people also goes up. In this method the per capita per day water requirement and per capita GDP are calculated on the basis of past records and with the help of these two parameters future water requirement is obtained for projected population. While studying the population trend, it is found that the population in Terai Region is increasing with increased rate and in Hills and Mountains it is increasing with 111 decreased rate which necessitate to estimate the future water requirement of Terai Region also. So in this dissertation, the future water requirement for Nepal, Study Area as well as Terai Region is estimated separately. After analysis, according to first approach the future water requirement of Nepal, Study area and Terai Region are found to be 113.4711 BCM, 1.8911 BCM and 72.78 BCM respectively. Similarly, according to second approach it is found to be 99.85 BCM, 1.664 BCM and 64.041 BCM for Nepal, Study area and Terai Region respectively.