The data presented here are a part of Climate Change Scenarios for Nepal report which has been developed through the collaborative efforts of the MoFE, the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM), the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), FutureWater, the NAP expert team, Action on Climate Today, and Practical Action for National Adaptation Plan (NAP) Process.

It used 8 (4 each for Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5) Global Circulation Models (GCMs) from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) datasets of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). Future climate change scenarios are calculated for the medium-term period (2016–2045) – corresponding with the 2030s – and the long-term period (2036–2065) – corresponding with the 2050s – with respect to the reference period 1981–2010, as identified by the process for precipitation and temperature.

The historical climate data was taken from Lutz and Immerzeel (2015) developed for Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra basins as a part of the HI-AWARE project. The climate dataset is developed from Watch Forcing ERA-Interim (WFDEI) dataset (Weedon et al., 2014) and was further bias corrected using the GPCC dataset (Schneider et al., 2013) and glacier mass balance data (Immerzeel et al., 2015, 2012). Since the dataset is originally developed for a regional scale, direct comparison with the observed dataset is not recommended. (Please see the MOFE (2019) for detailed information and references)