“Nepal is 2nd richest country in water resources” , this is what every school in Nepal teaches and is printed in every books, newspapers and media in Nepal. Even if you search in internet for term “2nd richest country in water resources” most of the Nepali bloggers and organization regards Nepal as 2nd richest country in water resources after Brazil. And I guess every Nepali believe on made fact “Nepal being 2nd richest country in water resource after Brazil”. But after a search and looking through Wikipedia & FAO, Nepal is not 2nd richest country in water resources. In fact that position belong to Russia. Nepal is in 41st position. Nepal isn’t 2nd richest country in water resource neither in Asia nor in South-Asia. Even India, China, Bangladesh have more water resources in comparison to Nepal.
The chart showing list of countries with renewable water resources. – Source :http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y4473e/y4473e08.htm
Sources for this information are ; Wikipedia, World Fact Book and UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
For full list : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_renewable_water_resources
For full list : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_renewable_water_resources
Nepal has capacity of producing 83000 MW of hydro-electricity, out of which only 43000 MW is techno-economically feasible. Even in case of hydro-electricity capacity Nepal doesn’t falls under top-ten list. Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity#World_hydroelectric_capacity
This again debunks another myth, “if Nepal is able to produce electricity to its full capacity it will be enough to light up whole South-Asia / Asia”.. there are different sayings about it. But even if that happens, then that electricity will be barely be sufficient to light up half of India or China. India already has installed capacity of 223.625 GW and China annual generation was 4692.8 TWh electricity.
Nepal is not 2nd richest country in water resources and saying this would be completely wrong. Probably this justifies the reason Nepal is suffering loadshedding marathon and scarcity of drinking water even in capital city.
It would me interesting to know how this fact came to existence.
If you still think Nepal is second richest country in water resources let me know how in comment section.
P.S Also check World Bank’s Data : http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ER.H2O.INTR.PC
