Understanding Public Trust in Disaster Governance: Three Cases from Nepal's Mountain Region

Abstract

 In policy level, Nepal's climate governance is fully equipped with the required institutional and  administrative arrangements and holds the capacity to manage and minimize the effects of climate disasters. However, there is a concern how these arrangements are translated into actions in the time of disaster and what implications does it have on the public trust and their sense of security. To understand this human security dynamics of trust,this paper examines the climate governance, public trust, and human security through three climate induced disasters in the mountain region of Nepal’s Bagmati Province: the 2021 Melamchi Flood, the 2024 Kathmandu Flood, and the 2025 Rasuwa Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF). Drawing on ethnographic accounts, media reports, and institutional perspectives, the study explores how the state’s reactive disaster governance has eroded citizens’ trust in public institutions. In Melamchi, local early warnings mitigated casualties, yet prolonged displacement and delayed compensation revealed weak institutional commitment to recovery. The Kathmandu flood exposed the lack of politicalwill to preventive urban planning, where encroachment, poor drainage, and inconsistent enforcement deepened both physical and social vulnerabilities. The Rasuwa GLOF extended this crisis of trust beyond borders, as the absence of early warning and data-sharing from upstream China underscored Nepal’s limited sovereignty in managing transboundary risks. Across these cases, disaster governance appeared visible but superficial, more performative than protective, reflecting systemic gaps between planning and practice. It argues that human insecurity in Nepal’s climate context arises not only from environmental threats but also from declining public trust in the country’s climate governance which is rooted in failures to anticipate risks and act with transparency and accountability. Therefore, building trust, both vertically between state and citizens and horizontally across communities and borders, emerges as a critical foundation for ensuring human security in the context of rising climate disaster in the mountain communities in Nepal.