Bheri

The Bheri is the Karnali's largest tributary, assembled from three high branches: the Thuli ('big') Bheri, which drains Dolpo and the northern slopes of the Dhaulagiri range — including the Suligad and Jugdual rivers that flow south out of Shey Phoksundo National Park, Nepal's largest at 3,555 km², from the country around Phoksundo Lake; the Sani ('small') Bheri from Dhaulagiri's southern slopes; and the Uttar Ganga from the Dhorpatan valley, Nepal's only hunting reserve.

United, the river swings west through the deep mid-hill country of Rukum, Jajarkot and Surkhet — its valley carries the road toward Dolpo — before joining the Karnali above the plains. It is a substantial river in its own right, with a strong glacier- and monsoon-fed regime, and a well-regarded wilderness rafting run.

The Bheri's modern significance is as a donor river. The Bheri–Babai Diversion Multipurpose Project, one of Nepal's National Pride Projects, takes a design flow of 40 m³/s from the Bheri through a 12 km headrace tunnel — the first in Nepal ever driven by tunnel-boring machine — into the Babai valley, where it irrigates 51,000 ha of farmland in Banke and Bardiya year-round and generates 46.73 MW of power on the drop. It is the prototype for the inter-basin transfers Nepal plans elsewhere.