Despite rapid income growth, South Asia has lagged behind the rest of Asia in reducing poverty and hunger. South Asia accounts for more than two-fifths of the world

The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh inaugurated the Third South Asian Conference on Sanitation in New Delhi on 18 November 2008. This Conference has a very special significance because the year 2008 has been declared as the International Year of Sanitation.

Increasing amount of soot, sulphates and other aerosol components in atmospheric brown clouds (ABCs) are causing major threats to the water and food security of Asia and have resulted in surface dimming, atmospheric solar heating and soot deposition in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan-Tibetan (HKHT) glaciers and snow packs.

Geography coupled with high levels of poverty and population density has rendered South Asia especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The impacts of climate change in the form of higher temperatures, more variable precipitation, and more extreme weather events are already felt in South Asia.

This conference will address the challenges posed by climate change on biodiversity and food security in relation to sustainable management. It envisages bringing policy planners and researchers from the South Asian region to a common platform to share knowledge and experience, so as to progress towards a sustainably developed society.

This report by SDMC documents the indigenous knowledge of different communities living in multi-hazard zones Nepal, Sri Lanka and India. Shows that communities use the indigenous knowledge to anticipate natural hazard that afflicts them to prepare better to face the disaster.