{"id":588497,"date":"2026-09-03T02:16:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T02:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/588497\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T02:16:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T02:16:18","slug":"trump-administration-cut-funds-for-landslide-monitoring-in-nepal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/588497\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration cut funds for landslide monitoring in Nepal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n In January 2025, the Trump administration cut off funding for a long-running natural hazards program that aimed to identify and monitor landslide hotspots in Nepal. Just over a year later, more than 1,100 people perished<\/a> when a huge glacier and rock landslide high in the Himalayas triggered fast-moving floodwaters that struck Nepal and China.\n <\/p>\n

\n The disaster illustrates the growing peril of living in mountain regions<\/a> like the Himalayas as the planet continues to warm due to climate pollution from human activities. Increasing temperatures are destabilizing glaciers, while also raising the risks of landslides, flash flooding and glacial outburst floods. While the program the administration cut would not have been able to prevent the disaster, it represented a first step towards making those kinds of protections possible in a future where they are going to be needed more.\n <\/p>\n

\n \ud83c\udf27\ufe0f Get your local forecast from the CNN Weather app<\/a>\n <\/p>\n

\n The program was known as Project SERVIR-Hindu Kush Himalaya. It was aimed at identifying areas prone to landslides and other risks that climate change is making more common, said Birendra Bajracharya, the project\u2019s former director. The funding cut halted efforts to improve \u201clandslide situational awareness\u201d related to extreme rainfall, he said. In addition, \u201cslope motion detection for landslide forecasts could not be completed\u201d either, Bajracharya said.\n <\/p>\n

\n A State Department spokesperson told CNN that the January 2025 funding cut came before the administration\u2019s reorganization of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which included funding cuts to many of USAID\u2019s programs, and that Project SERVIR-Hindu Kush Himalaya\u2019s tools and services remain active today through another organization, the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). The State Department spokesperson also said that the US still supports flood mitigation programs in Nepal.\n <\/p>\n

\n Bajracharya, however, said he was told the funding was cut because of changes to US administration priorities on foreign aid and cuts to USAID. \u201cWe got the stop work notice around the end of January 2025,\u201d he said. He noted the contract was originally supposed to last through 2026.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Trump administration froze nearly all foreign assistance<\/a> worldwide days after President Donald Trump took office and issued a sweeping executive order to put a hold on such aid.\n <\/p>\n

\n The SERVIR program probably would not have been able to provide an early warning of the floods that caused so much devastation this month, had it been operating, Bajracharya said. Glacier breakup events are rare enough that researchers can\u2019t yet set up alarm bells for when they happen. But the program was working on spotting locations where such events might be likely \u2014 something that can help communities downstream be better prepared for the worst.\n <\/p>\n

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The forecast is just the beginning. We\u2019ll\u202fsend you expert coverage and the stories behind the weather \u2014 so you always know more than just the number. Sign up for the newsletter<\/a><\/p>\n

\n Some of the data programs that Project SERVIR initiated in Nepal continue to operate, Bajracharya said, including streamflow prediction for major rivers in the region and forest fire monitoring. However, flood inundation mapping is no longer operational.\n <\/p>\n

\n Bajracharya and outside scientists said monitoring of glaciers, areas prone to landslides and river flooding are urgently needed in this region, and the funding cut suddenly shut down efforts that had been underway since 2010. Pulling funding without advanced notice was particularly disruptive, Bajracharya said, because there was no time to wind down projects or try to pass them on to other organizations.\n <\/p>\n

\"Elon<\/p>\n

\n Project SERVIR-Hindu Kush Himalaya was a joint initiative involving NASA, USAID and ICIMOD. The Trump administration \u2014 partly through the work of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) \u2014 dismantled USAID, canceling scores of grants based on keyword searches, including \u201cclimate.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The broader Project SERVIR still operates some programs elsewhere in Asia, Africa and Latin America, but the projects in Nepal have been shut down, according to information on its website.\n <\/p>\n

\n The ongoing support for flood mitigation in Nepal is taking place through a grant to the World Meteorological Organization, the State Department spokesperson said. In addition, they said there is also a work agreement between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Nepal\u2019s Department of Hydrology and Meteorology for flood early warning, disaster response training and work to improve forecast data.\n <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n According to Marco Tedesco, a geophysicist at Columbia University, the task of developing early warning systems for landslides, glacier collapse events and glacial outburst floods requires sustained effort. He criticized the funding cut for discontinuing critical work along these lines.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cFor sure, taking away resources from existing projects is not the way to go,\u201d Tedesco said.\n <\/p>\n

\n He said while we currently lack the capacity to warn of a disaster like what recently occurred in Nepal and China, it is necessary to try to develop an early warning system because the region is becoming more vulnerable to similar calamities in the future.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe knew that this could have happened, and we know that it will happen again eventually,\u201d Tedesco said of the deadly glacial collapse. \u201cThe area is so exposed to hazards from a geological perspective, but it\u2019s also so densely populated, that even small areas impacted, they are going to be paying a high price.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s a problem of allocation of resources,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s a problem of investing to develop the proper technologies.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In January 2025, the Trump administration cut off funding for a long-running natural hazards program that aimed to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":["post-588497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}