The author has provided a major compilation of data relating to all aspects of watershed functioning and management in the middle mountains of Nepal. This includes climatological, hydrological, soil science, sediment transfer, and socio economic data. It embraces his own research during a 5-year secondment to ICIMOD together with the accumulation of a vast array of data from across the entire region of the Hindu Kush–Himalayas, and their analysis. There are numerous sketch maps, graphs, flow diagrams, and data tables (233 Figures and 175 Tables), probably exceeding by far any comparable compendium.

The author's primary concern is focused on 2 small watersheds that have been intensely studied over many years as part of ICI-MOD's People and Resource Dynamics in Mountain Watersheds of the HK–H (PARDYP) Project. A series of models is developed and applied in the larger regional context.

While this study provides more of the much needed factual information for the continuing discourse on environmental degradation of the region and its causes, its main objective is to determine water availability, water usage, water need, and future projections. It builds firmly on the work of the very few earlier researchers who have attempted instrumented field investigations (eg Alford, Gardner, Gerrard, Hofer, Schreier, Valdiya, and Wymann von Dach).

The general conclusions support much of the earlier work that refutes the Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation (THED):

Given the high relevance of this excellent study to the discourse on the THED, this reviewer will confine himself to a single cautionary comment. The author's first paragraph, quoting Zurick and Karan (1999), categorizes Ives and Messerli (1989) as one extreme of a debate, with Eckholm (1976) forming the other. He goes on to explain that Zurick and Karan object to generalization in a region of great complexity. I am concerned that this is an insupportable simplification, as Ives and Messerli (1989) repeatedly assert the fallacy of generalization because of the very complex nature of the region. The major generalization that they made in this context was that the mountain farmer should not be blamed for mountain environmental degradation, let alone for downstream siltation and increased flooding. The current study admirably supports that contention.

The work is a vital contribution to an understanding of watershed dynamics in the Himalayan region. The author is to be congratulated for his enormous persistence and scrupulous attention to detail. Nevertheless, this makes for a very dense text that will demand considerable concentration on the part of the reader.