Low flows in the Middle Mountain watersheds of the Hindu-Kush Himalayas (HKH) Bhawani S. Dongol 1 , Madhav P. Dhakal 1 , Pradeep M. Dangol 1 , Juerg Merz 1, 5 , Basant K. Joshi 2 , P.K. Verma 2 , Mohammad Jehangir 3 , Suhail Zokaib 3 , Gao Fu 4 and Xing Ma 4 1 International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, Kathmandu/Nepal. 2 G.B. Pant Institute for Himalayan Environment and Development, Almora/India. 3 Pakistan Forest Institute, Peshawar/Pakistan 4 Kunming Institute of Botany, Kunming/China. 5 Hydrology Group, Department of Geography, University of Bern, Bern/Switzerland. Abstract In the middle mountain areas of the Hindu-Kush Himalayan region population growth is rapid. Agricultural intensification is also getting high and more water is needed for increased crop productions. Shortages of water for irrigation followed by drinking were found to be the major issues in the areas of middle mountain region of Hindu-Kush Himalayan region. During the monsoon season there is a lot of rain and water everywhere but most of the remaining time is dry causing scarcity of water. The People and Resource Dynamics Project (PARDYP), a regional research for development watershed management project has been operating in five watersheds across the Hindu-Kush Himalayas (HKH), one in Pakistan- Hilkot watershed, one in India-Bhetagad watershed, two in Nepal-Jhikhu Khola watershed and Yarsha Khola watershed and one in China-Xizhuang watershed. The main aim of this study is to analyse and compare the low flow characteristics for better understanding and use in future water management activities. Different low flow characteristics including rainfall, specific discharge, runoff coefficient, low flow frequencies, base flow index and low flow index were analysed for the five PARDYP watersheds and compared. Hilkot watershed is found to be critical watershed in terms of low flow characteristics amongst the five watersheds. The potential for the water resource in Hilkot watershed is very limited. Bhetagad watershed comes to the second critical watershed after Hilkot watershed. Yarsha Khola and Xizhuang watersheds are found to be good watersheds in terms of water availability compared to the other watersheds. Jhikhu Khola watershed is found to be in the middle, in terms of water resource potential compared to five watersheds. Key words: Low flow, middle mountains, watershed, HKH Introduction Water remains the major issue in the middle mountain areas of the Hindu-Kush Himalayas (Merz et.al., 2003). The demand for water is rising due to increasing population and agricultural intensification. Seasonal variability in rainfall distribution with distinct monsoonal climate causes water scarcity during dry seasons. Shortages of irrigation water followed by drinking water are the major key issues of the study area. Analysis of hydro-meteorological data is important to understand the hydrological regimes for proper management of water resources of the region. This study is focused on the low flow characteristics on a watershed level and conducted under PARDYP project. PARDYP is a regional research for development watershed and natural resources management project implemented in five watersheds of the four countries: China, India, Nepal and Pakistan. The project has generated considerable amount of hydro-meteorological data. Few low flow characteristics were analysed and the results are presented and discussed. Study area and methodology The study area is the five PARDYP watersheds across the Hindu-Kush Himalayas (HKH): Hilkot in Pakistan, Bhetagad in India, Jhikhu Khola and Yarsha Khola in Nepal and Xizhuang in China, Figure 1.