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This paper investigates the possible relationship between solar activity and monthly rainfall in Pokhara and Kathmandu cities in Nepal from the year 1968 to 2023. The study uses Cross Correlation Analysis (CCA) and wavelet analysis, the Cross-Wavelet Transform (XWT) and Wavelet Transform Coherence (WTC), to analyze the time series data. The CCA shows a strong positive correlation between the solar cycle and rainfall trend, with correlation coefficients of 0.77 and 0.76 and time lags of 18 months and 14 months at Pokhara and Kathmandu, respectively. The p-values, calculated to be < 0.0001 through the t-test, indicate that the observed correlations are statistically significant. The XWT results show a long-term ∼ 11-year common periodicity in solar cycle and rainfall. The WTC analysis confirms the local correlation between these two time series in time–frequency domain at a common periodicity. The results indicate that the monthly rainfall pattern in Nepal is closely related to the solar cycle pattern. Thus, solar activity likely plays a role in influencing rainfall trends in Nepal. This study shows that solar-climate interaction on a regional scale is complex and emphasizes the importance of understanding these relationships for predicting and managing climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Country ownership is one of the four guiding principles for the Immunization Agenda 2030. • There is little practical guidance on what country ownership is and how to operationalize it. • Measles and rubella programs are used to illustrate country ownership in operation. • Five elements of country ownership - commitment, coordination, capacity, community participation, and accountability - are described. • Our work is a useful guide for immunization program strategy development. Country-owned, as opposed to donor-driven, is a principle within the development sector that recognizes the centrality of countries' leadership, systems, and resources in executing programs and achieving sustainable development. In alignment with this notion, the Immunization Agenda 2030 was developed with country ownership as one of four core principles of the ambitious ten-year plan. This means that the success of immunization programs, including those with eradication and elimination goals such as polio, measles, and rubella, and those with broader equity goals to "leave no one behind" on immunization, would be largely driven by country systems. In this paper we deconstruct country ownership into five operational principles: commitment, coordination, capacity, community participation, and accountability. Through this lens, we illustrate how two countries, Nepal and Nigeria, have exemplified country ownership in their measles and rubella elimination programs and we infer the ways in which country ownership drives system performance and sustains program efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of experts in implementing Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) initiatives at the national level and explores the performative politics and power dynamics involved. Original research conducted in Malaysia, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, where REDD+ efforts were underway, provides the empirical basis for the study. The findings reveal tensions between the official win-win narrative of REDD+ and the reflective perspectives of experts based on their empirical knowledge and unique positionalities. These tensions raise questions about the underlying norms and values associated with REDD+. However, the pursuit of professional development within the international development and conservation sector, reliant on donor funding, impedes constructive reflection. The alignment of experts with donor visions for career advancement contributes to this obstacle. Therefore, the paper argues for creating space for a more reflexive approach among scholars and practitioners to foster comprehensive reflection and a fundamental rethink of the future of REDD+. • Examination of REDD+ experts' discourses at the national level reveals another operational challenge for REDD+. • Empirical observations and past experiences of REDD+ experts raise doubts about the core norms and values of REDD+. • The lack of emphasis on this empirical knowledge in international policy processes hinders REDD+'s progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In international research and development discourses, the 'Feminization of Agriculture' is often used as a vague umbrella term referring to an increase in women's labor burden and responsibilities in agriculture as a result of male out-migration. However, the term is under-conceptualized, and fails to reflect changing gender relations in agriculture and natural resource management, with the potential consequence of ill-defined agriculture and gender research programs. This paper challenges narratives of the 'Feminization of Agriculture'. Drawing from feminist political ecology, this paper conceptualizes gender relations more broadly by highlighting gendered subjectivities and power relations in agriculture in contexts of male out-migration. I propose a conceptual framework to explore shifts in (1) socio-spatial struggles over resources, (2) influence within agrarian households and communal spaces, (3) aspirations, feelings of insecurity and self-determination. I build on extensive participatory fieldwork conducted in three countries, Nepal, India and Bangladesh. The conceptual framework helps analyze how some gender norms and relations are renegotiated in contexts of male out-migration. While unequal power relations shape everyday struggles in agriculture and natural resource management, for some women, increased mobility, social engagement and handling cash create new spaces to influence, move, and communicate. Importantly, everyday struggles over agricultural, water and land resources remain shaped by gender, age, caste, land ownership, remittances and household position, particularly those living with the family in-laws. Research and development programs need to take intersectionality into account and explore emerging spaces for influence, but also be aware of persistent gender norms and power relations which shape agricultural practices, aspirations and self-determination. I conclude by arguing for the need to expand the 'Feminization of Agriculture' debate towards a broader understanding of socio-spatial change and gendered subjectivities within agriculture. • The term 'Feminization of Agriculture' is under-conceptualized, and fails to reflect changing gender relations in agriculture and natural resource management. • A conceptual framework drawing from feminist political ecology frames gender relations more broadly and highlights gendered subjectivities and power relations in agriculture in contexts of male out-migration. • The conceptual framework explores shifts in (1) socio-spatial struggles over resources, (2) influence within agrarian households and communal spaces, (3) aspirations, feelings of insecurity and self-determination. • This paper challenges narratives of the 'Feminization of Agriculture' by arguing for the need to expand the 'Feminization of Agriculture' debate towards a broader understanding of socio-spatial change and gendered subjectivities within agriculture. • Research and development programs need to take intersectionality into account and be aware of persistent gender norms and power relations which shape agricultural practices, aspirations and self-determination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community forestry is becoming an increasingly popular forest management model worldwide. Community structure, property rights, and institutional perspectives of community forestry have been discussed so far. Yet, the question of how to integrate scientific knowledge into indigenous practices has not been sufficiently articulated, and this is the most significant issue in uncertain yet complex socio-ecological systems. Examining the current policy struggle of scientific vs indigenous practices in a pioneering country of community forestry―Nepal, we propose a framework of 'management authorship' in community forestry. As opposed to the classical approach of 'biosphere people' influencing 'ecosystem people' by injecting science into the community, this perspective paper would be instrumental in integrating science into indigenous practices without compromising capacity, confidence, and stewardship of local actors over the resulting adaptive management practices. • We examined the debate of new scientific insights and indigenous knowledge. • A way of integrating science into indigenous practice needs a reformed approach. • Management authorship envisions gradual, informed, and adaptive reform in forest management. • Management authorship provides avenue for sustainable management of communal resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses a theoretical perspective known as organizational institutionalism to explain the higher test scores observed among private school students in Nepal. We argue that the differing "institutional charters" of public and private schools in Nepal result in different forms of school governance, external monitoring, and instructional practice in public and private schools and that these organizational features of schooling affect students' learning outcomes. Empirical analyses presented in the paper show that public and private schools in Nepal do show expected differences in school governance, external monitoring, and instructional practice, but that only the instructional practice variable positively affects student achievement. • Public and private schools in Nepal differed in organizational characteristics. • Private schools showed more unitary governance than public schools. • Private schools were subject to less external monitoring than public schools. • Private schools showed higher quality of instruction than public schools. • Instructional quality in schools was associated with student achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing fragmentation of farmland remains a critical agriculture development challenge around the world, specifically in developing countries. Farmland consolidation is one of the most efficient policy instruments, extensively implemented across the world, to deal with the critical issues in agriculture sector associated with farmland fragmentation. Despite this prospect there is a vast gap in literature exploring factors influencing farmers' preference for farmland consolidation in developing countries like Nepal. This research aims to identify the factors influencing farmers' preference for farmland consolidation through a randomized conjoint experiment. For a randomized conjoint experiment, five attributes related to farmland consolidation, i.e., methods of consolidation, development of roads and irrigation, the expected increase in agricultural income, minimum area of farmland for consolidation, and provision of service, with 3–4 levels were identified through literature review, expert consultation, and pretesting. The average marginal component effects of each randomly assigned attribute's levels are estimated. Respondents' willingness to accept farmland consolidation is also assessed based on the choice led by the expected increase in agricultural income. Sixty-five percent of respondent farmers preferred the alternative policy to consolidate farmland over the status quo. The expected increase in income and the development of roads and irrigation through a joint effort of the government and farmers influence farmers' preference for farmland consolidation positively. In contrast, farmers' preference for farmland consolidation is negatively affected by a bigger area of farmland consolidation. The method of farmland consolidation and provision of service does not have a significant impact on farmers' preference for farmland consolidation. Respondent farmers are willing to accept a yearly increase of USD 362 per hectare to consolidate their farmland. This paper suggests any policy targeted for farmland consolidation to focus on ensuring the increased income for the participant farmers mainly through shared effort to develop a connection road and irrigation infrastructure contributing to efficient production practices in the consolidated farmland. The farmers would consolidate their land if their yearly farm income increased by USD 362. Since majority of Nepali farmers are smallholding farmers, they would not prefer the larger size for farmland consolidation as it involves many farmers or require high capital to procure land through buying/selling of land. These policy implications could be extended to other developing countries which are experiencing increasing farmland fragmentation and having the similar socioeconomic context. [Display omitted] • There is a need for farmland consolidation to enhance efficiency of agriculture production in Nepal • Impact of important attributes on farmers' preference for farmland consolidation is assessed • 65% of the respondents prefer the proposed farmland consolidation policy over the status quo • Higher expected increase in income and joint development of important infrastructures increase preference for the policy • A larger area set for farmland consolidation negatively affect the preference [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A great deal of research has been conducted in the mountains; however, most of the scientific information remains scattered with minimal use in the policy and governance. We systematically reviewed and evaluated the published scientific literature on the Himalaya and identified 77,912 research outputs from 12,258 sources. Agriculture and Biological Sciences was dominant field of research followed by Earth Sciences, Medicine, Environmental Sciences and Social Sciences. Number of publications has increased annually in the Himalaya in all research disciplines, especially after 2000 with highest funding from India, China, and USA whereas highest scientific contribution from India, Nepal, USA, UK, and China. In terms of research quality, nearly 45 % of the research papers were published in SCI indexed journals. Cumulative impact factor of research articles has increased consistently whereas average impact factor was higher during 1970–1990. Prominent research themes in the Himalaya includes humans, clinical studies, animalia, genetics, risk assessment, healthcare, tectonics, climate change, earthquakes, rainfall, biodiversity, glaciers etc. Research publications in the Himalaya covers a wide range of aspects like field-based data driven studies, new discoveries and observations, application of new methods and techniques, application of theoretical knowledge, policy, governance etc. The Himalaya which is often termed as a data deficient region is a repository for large volume of scientific and socio-cultural information. This information if curated carefully under a uniform and multidisciplinary framework involving a trans-boundary network of Himalayan nations will provide a powerful tool for evidence-based policies and practice to address emerging environmental challenges in the region. • The Himalaya constitutes the highest and one of the largest mountain ecosystem on the earth. • Bioscience is the dominant field of research followed Geology, Medicine, and Environmental Science. • India, China, USA, and Nepal are the largest contributors in scientific output and funding. • Volume and quality of scientific publications has increased particularly after 2000 in all research themes. • If curated carefully, this information will provide a powerful tool for evidence-based policies and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By definition, public spaces are areas or locations that are open and accessible to all people, and in cities they are open space that is specifically concerned with public health, social cohesion, and the quality of urban life. This paper reports a review of literatures on urban public spaces attempting to gauge the research gaps on public spaces through a scoping-review analysis of relevant studies. The review of relevant literatures published from 1990 to 2023 led to an inference that there is a huge gap in defining the publicness (non-excludable and non-rival) of the public spaces in Nepal. Furthermore, knowledge about public spaces is found to be scattered. However, all Nepal-based research identified that open spaces in Kathmandu valley were severely encroached upon. Rapid urbanization, along with a lack of resilient urban planning and governance, appears to have a significant influence on urban public spaces and social cohesion, as well as diseconomies in emerging economies. Social inequalities, health disparities, environmental injustice, economic instability and stifled cultural expression are all intricately bound to urban public spaces, particularly green public space, which still remains a research priority for new evidence-based urban policymakers and urban planners in developing countries. Future research should therefore focus on a multilevel approach preferably using network model to cover and comprehend the societal-benefits of public space, extending large-scale quantitative assessments with field evaluations of each public space, community surveys, and other qualitative research in Nepal. Component-wise research gaps are also evidently explored in the course of separate domains. • This paper gauges the research gap on new and regenerated public spaces. • A substantial gap remains in locally redefining the public spaces, promoting diseconomies in the emerging economies. • Social, health, environmental, economic and cultural aspects of urban green public spaces are to be in research priority. • Future research should focus on grasping the societal value of public space at multilevel approach using network model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social norms are often put forward to explain resistance to gender equality and social inclusion (GESI), and women continue to be largely absent from decision-making positions in the energy sector worldwide. However, there is limited research on the institutional mechanisms of policy-making and implementation at different scales within a federal system. Using Nepal as a case study, this paper explores why, despite commitments, progress toward GESI objectives in the energy sector has been slow. Based on a review of energy policies, and interviews at federal, provincial and local government spheres, this paper focuses on the institutional and policy processes at play within the energy sector and between the three spheres of the federal system (the national, provincial and local). It examines the extent to which these processes undermine the implementation of inclusion policy. Understanding the broader institutional processes helps to identify different types of bottlenecks compromising progress in GESI: those which are linked to deficient policy regimes which cannot be addressed solely through additional GESI-focused interventions, and those which can be characterized as resistant to GESI-related issues. The aim of this research is also to understand why Nepal's public energy institutions, despite a constitutional commitment to gender equality and non-discrimination based on caste, class, ethnicity and religion, seem so reluctant to mainstream GESI within its policies and practice. The paper concludes that GESI implementation in the energy sector suffers from limited human resources, a narrow conceptual framing and delays in policy development and implementation within different spheres of the federal system. Moreover, shortcomings related to GESI policy-making and implementation should be considered within the broader context of federalism. Therefore, to support GESI policy implementation, bureaucratic as well as local-level ownership of the concept and its relevance for sustainable development must be developed and strengthened. • Progress toward GESI objectives in the energy sector has been slow. • Policy-wise, GESI is well recognized, but the challenge is more in implementation. • Policies are mostly developed in individual projects as donor conditions. • There is limited GESI appropriation by government departments. • GESI policy-making/implementation should be considered within the context of federalism in Nepal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global Solar Radiation (GSR) prediction models are critical to improve the dispatch, control, and stabilization of solar renewable power, and to integrate the solar energy into the electrical grid system. GSR, especially on a short-term scale, can have important fluctuations, which may affect the total energy expected to be supplied to the grid. To overcome this issue, prediction models with a high forecasting performance are needed. In this paper a novel framework based on Improved Complete Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition with Adaptive Noise (ICEEMDAN) and Deep Residual Network with Bidirectional long short-term memory, i.e., DRESNET model, is proposed for obtaining accurate multi-step ahead GSR predictions. To train the proposed ICEEMDAN-DRESNET hybrid model, minute-level daylight data from Energy Sector Management Assistance Program in Nepalgunj (mid-western Nepal) are used. The results demonstrate ICEEMDAN-DRESNET model is an excellent tool for short-term solar energy monitoring, yielding excellent predictions, in all metrics such as MAE 9.769 W/m2, MAPE 5.657 % , TIC 1.143, CPI 4.739, and TIC 0.023 for 5-min time-horizon predictions, improving the results from the benchmark models. As the forecasting time-horizon is increased, the ICEEMDAN-DRESNET model accuracy drops, with MAE 33.672 W/m2; MAPE 31.749 % for 1-hr, MAE 22.625 W/m2; MAPE 18.312 % (30-min) and MAE 14.897 W/m2; MAPE 10.358 % (15-min), also better than the benchmark models. The results confirm the competitive merit of ICEEMDAN and DRESNET integration to improve deep learning and the potential of proposed model for the monitoring of solar or other renewable (e.g., wind or solar) energies. [Display omitted] • A deep learning algorithm for short-term solar prediction is proposed. • The system considers deep residual and bidirectional long short-term memory network models. • Nepal (a solar-rich region) is selected to evaluate the deep learning algorithm. • Tests are carried out at multi-step ahead horizons of 5-min, 10-min, 30-min and 1-h. • Excellent performance of the proposed deep learning system is reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Typhoid fever is an endemic disease in many low-income and middle-income countries. The 2018 WHO position paper recommends that countries should consider typhoid vaccination in high-risk groups and for outbreak control. To address the typhoid vaccine supply and demand gap, a typhoid Vi polysaccharide-diphtheria toxoid (Vi-DT) conjugate vaccine development effort was undertaken to achieve WHO prequalification and contribute to the global supply of typhoid conjugate vaccine. The main aim of this study was to show immune non-inferiority of the Vi-DT vaccine compared with the WHO prequalified Vi polysaccharide-tetanus toxoid (Vi-TT) conjugate vaccine (Typbar TCV; Bharat Biotech India, Hyderabad, India) in participants of various ages from an endemic country.Methods: We did an observer-blind, active-controlled, randomised, non-inferiority, phase 3 trial at four hospitals in Kathmandu, Dhulikhel, Dharan, and Nepalgunj in Nepal. Eligible participants were healthy individuals aged 6 months to 45 years for whom informed consent was obtained, were willing to follow the study procedures and were available for the duration of the study. Patients with an acute or chronic illness that could interfere with interpretation of the study endpoints, or who were involved in any other clinical trial were excluded. Participants were randomly assigned (1:1:1:1) by block randomisation (block size of four and eight), stratified by age (6 months to <2 years, 2 years to <18 years, and 18 years to 45 years), into one of four groups (A-D). Participants in groups A-C received a single dose (25 μg; 0·5 mL) of Vi-DT test vaccine via intramuscular injection from one of three good manufacturing practice lots (group A received lot 1, group B received lot 2, and group C received lot 3), and those in group D received a single dose (25 μg; 0·5 mL) of the Vi-TT vaccine via intramuscular injection. All participants, site staff (except for those who administered the study vaccines), and those assessing the outcomes were masked to group assignment. The co-primary endpoints were: (1) non-inferiority of immunogenicity of the Vi-DT vaccine (pooled groups A-C) versus the Vi-TT vaccine (group D), measured by the anti-Vi IgG seroconversion rate at 4 weeks after vaccination; and (2) the lot-to-lot consistency of the Vi-DT vaccine, measured by immune equivalence of the anti-Vi IgG geometric mean titre (GMT) at 4 weeks after receipt of the three Vi-DT vaccine lots (lot 1 vs lot 2, lot 1 vs lot 3, and lot 2 vs lot 3). Non-inferiority of the Vi-DT vaccine compared with the Vi-TT vaccine was shown if the lower limit of the 97·5% CI for the difference between the seroconversion rates in Vi-DT vaccine groups A-C combined versus Vi-TT vaccine group D was above the predefined non-inferiority margin of -10%. Lot-to-lot immune equivalence was shown if the upper and lower bounds of the two-sided 99·17% CI around the GMT ratio for each pairwise lot-to-lot comparison was between 0·67 and 1·50, which is the predefined equivalence margin recommended by WHO. The co-primary immunogenicity endpoints were assessed in all randomised participants who had received their assigned vaccine and had completed at least one post-baseline immunogenicity assessment. Safety was descriptively summarised by group and age strata, and was assessed in all participants who had received one dose of the investigational vaccine. The trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03933098.Findings: Between Nov 20, 2019, and March 10, 2020, 1854 individuals were screened, of whom 1800 were enrolled and randomly assigned to groups A-D (450 participants in each group). 1786 (99·2%; 443 in group A, 450 in group B, 447 in group C, and 446 in group D) were included in the immunogenicity assessments at 4 weeks post vaccination, and all 1800 participants were included in the safety analysis. In the immunogenicity analysis, the anti-Vi-IgG seroconversion rate in all age strata was 99·33% (97·5% CI 98·61 to 99·68; 1331 of 1340 participants) in Vi-DT vaccine groups A-C and 98·88% (97·10 to 99·57; 441 of 446) in Vi-TT vaccine group D. The difference in seroconversion rates between Vi-DT vaccine groups A-C combined versus Vi-TT group D was 0·47% (97·5% CI -0·68 to 1·61), indicating non-inferiority of the Vi-DT vaccine. Anti-Vi-IgG GMT ratios at 4 weeks post-vaccination were 1·02 (99·17% CI 0·85 to 1·22) for lot 1 versus lot 2, 1·02 (0·85 to 1·23) for lot 1 versus lot 3, and 1·01 (0·84 to 1·21) for lot 2 versus lot 3, indicating lot-to-lot equivalence according to the predefined, WHO-recommended equivalence margin. The proportion of participants reporting adverse events was similar between Vi-DT vaccine groups A-C and Vi-TT vaccine group D; 260 (19·3%) of 1350 participants in Vi-DT vaccine groups A-C and 115 (25·6%) of 450 in Vi-TT vaccine group D reported solicited adverse events within 7 days after vaccination, and 208 (15·4%) in Vi-DT vaccine groups A-C and 76 (16·9%) in Vi-TT vaccine group D reported unsolicited adverse events within 4 weeks after vaccination. Seven serious adverse events (four [0·3%] participants in Vi-DT vaccine groups A-C and three [0·7%] in Vi-TT vaccine group D), including one death in the Vi-TT vaccine group, were reported during the 24-week follow-up period, none of which were considered related to the investigational product.Interpretation: When administered as a single dose, the Vi-DT test vaccine was safe, immunogenic, and non-inferior to the Vi-TT vaccine at 4 weeks post vaccination. Equivalent immunogenicity of the three lots of Vi-DT vaccine was also shown, supporting the manufacturing process of this vaccine. Once prequalified by WHO, this vaccine could be an option for purchase by UN agencies.Funding: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.Translation: For the Nepali translation of the abstract see Supplementary Materials section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a long history of Improved Cookstove (ICS) interventions by Non-Governmental Organizations, International Development partners and the Government of Nepal, the majority of rural Nepalese people cook on a traditional open fire for their large-scale cooking needs due to a significant lack of approved institutional-scale cooking solutions. Whilst 65.8% of rural Nepalese households cook with biomass as their primary fuel source to satisfy their personal energy needs, there is no information collected on institutional cooking use by the Government of Nepal. In this paper our main objective was to design, implement and evaluate a novel Institutional Improved Cookstove (IICS) to satisfy this gap and following its manufacturing and testing in a Government of Nepal approved test center, to identify the complex contextual factors that often override the technical capabilities of IICS. Our three-phase method combined qualitative and quantitative research approaches, as well as north-south collaborations involving a transdisciplinary research team to create an integrated systems approach taking into account the voices of all key energy stakeholders. Phase 1 included UK based co-design and testing at the University of Nottingham in 2017 to develop a novel IICS that could be used in rural Nepal. Phase 2 involved adapting the design to accommodate contextual factors highlighted by Nepalese partners and to meet testing requirements at a Government of Nepal approved testing center in late 2017. Phase 3 was conducted between December 2017 and April 2020 and focused on piloting the novel IICS in a range of locations, altitudes, socio-economic and cultural settings, monitoring sustained use and obtaining user feedback. We present our results through three case studies that highlight the highly contextualized nature of IICS adoption and sustained use, the importance of stacking, usability and cost savings, and a number of pathways to scale in an institutional setting. • Focus on institutional scale improved cookstoves. • Co-creation of cooking technology with UK and Nepali Engineers. • Present a novel Institutional scale Natural Draft Top-Lit Up-Draft (TLUD) Gasifier for use in off-grid rural settings. • 36 month long Small-Scale Study identifying complex contextual factors that act as barriers to adoption and sustained use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the networks, experiences and aspirations of Nepalese workers in Southern Portugal's farms and greenhouses. The main research objective is to analyse how recruitment networks, which supported the move of Nepalese to Portugal, were established and have rapidly consolidated. These networks impacted not only the increase of irregular migration flows but also the migration experience and vulnerability in the country of destination, including the passive acceptance of a certain degree of exploitation. By highlighting the perspective of the migrants themselves, we examine the impact on their lives, both of the migration experience and of paying large sums to smugglers, usually obtained through indebtment, to enter Portugal. We relate this impact to a context of immigration where the existence of a large informal labour market facilitates these workers being hired as irregular migrants. The study employed secondary data, in-depth interviews and participant observation. As well as migrants, greenhouse owners and recruiters were also interviewed for the study. The main finding is that the disposition of Nepalese to migrate, in which the pressure of the family plays a key role, tends to be reinforced by the action of the networks of recruiting agents. Secondly, the costs of migration and labour exploitation tend to be accepted by the migrants as a way to fulfil their social aspirations and economic necessities. • Aspirations for material gains through migration are coupled with a rise in social status in Nepal. • Using migration networks, Nepalese resort to smuggling services and pay on average €9600 to recruitment and travel agencies. • Though living conditions in Portugal are precarious, the Nepalese simultaneously enjoy consuming 'modernity' in Portugal, new lifestyles and greater individual freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the gap between the design and in-situ performance of solar streetlight interventions in two humanitarian settings. Displaced settlements often lack street lighting and electricity. Given that off-grid solar streetlights produce surplus energy, we hypothesized that this energy could be made available for daily usage, to improve system performance and provide further energy access to displaced populations. We recognize, however, that solar streetlight performance and longevity have typically been poor in remote and refugee settings. Eleven solar streetlights were fitted with ground-level sockets and their performance monitored, in two displaced settlements: a refugee camp in Rwanda and an internally displaced population settlement in Nepal. Considerable performance gaps were found across all eleven systems. Inefficient lights and mismatching system components were major issues at both sites, reducing targeted designed performance ratios by 33% and 53% on average in Rwanda and Nepal, respectively. The challenges of deploying these types of systems in temporary settlements are outlined and a number of suggestions are made to guide future developments in the design and implementation of sustainable solar streetlight interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hindu Kush Himalayan region is a documented climate change hotspot. The region is also known for its ongoing development challenges including those arising from reconstruction in the aftermath of natural disasters. Incepting the idea of climate-resilience in development planning has, therefore, become a necessity in this poverty-ridden region. To identify the strategies that have been envisaged by the stakeholders in terms of climate-resilient development, this paper singled out the stakeholders who are responsible for local-level development in the mid-hill region of Nuwakot which lies in central Nepal. Data was collected through the visioning and back-casting method and included interviews with community members, NGO experts and regional representatives. The study identified the activities and priorities of stakeholders based on different time horizons illustrating climate-resilient development pathways. The study found that community pathways address mostly current needs and climate variability and that future challenges do not play a central role in the selection of adaptation measures. Although a majority of the actors recognized climate-resilient development as a priority, it tends to be planned in silos without cooperation and coordination among themselves. The results reveal that the risks and vulnerabilities encountered by community members, who are at the receiving end of climate change, have not been incorporated into the development plans of the policymakers. The study concludes that development priorities should be formulated based on the identification of a need and proposes that future cooperation mechanisms for stakeholders should be brought under one umbrella and include a discussion of climate-resilient development pathways that incorporates more community engagement so as not to lose the connection between country aspirations and community voices. • Community members are calling for empowerment and capacity building for climate change adaptation. • Designing and implementing climate-resilient development pathways are not inclusive of marginalised communities. • Multi-stakeholder coordination and co-operation among is necessary for implementing adaptive governance for climate-resilient development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deer surveys play an important role in the estimation of local ecological balance. In the Chitwan National Park of Nepal, the dense tree canopies and tall vegetation often obscure the presence of wild deer, which has a negative effect on the accurate population surveys of wild deer. UAVs equipped with infrared sensors have been increasingly used to monitor wild deer by capturing a lot of images. How to automatically recognize and obtain the number of deer objects from thermal images is becoming an important research topic. Due to the difference between thermal images and true-color images, as well as the variations in deer object sizes in these two types of images, current ready-to-use object detection models, designed for true-color imagery, are ill-suited for the task of detecting small deer objects within thermal imagery. In this paper, an enhanced Faster R-CNN was constructed to detect small deer objects from thermal images, in which a Feature Pyramid Network (FPN) based on a residual network is used to improve feature extraction for small deer objects and multi-scale feature map constrution for the subsequent region proposals searching, bounding box regression, and regions of interest (RoIs) classification. In addition, small-scaled anchor boxes and a multi-scale feature map selection criterion are devised to improve the detection accuracy of small objects. Finally, based on Faster R-CNN, FPN, and different residual networks including ResNet18, ResNet34, ResNet50, ResNet101, and ResNet152, we constructed five object detection models, and evaluated their detection performance by using COCO evaluation matrix. Under the condition of IoU ≥ 0.5 , the integration of Faster R-CNN, FPN, and ResNet18 demonstrated to perform better than others. Specifically, The COCO evaluation results revealed an Average Precision (AP) score of 91.6% for all deer objects. Small deer objects (area ≤ 200 pixels) achieved an AP score of 73.6%, medium deer objects (200 < area ≤ 400 pixels) demonstrated an AP score of 93.4%, and large deer objects (area > 400 pixels) achieved the highest AP score of 94.3%. Our research is helpful for effective wild deer monitoring and conservation and can be a valuable reference for the exploration of small object detection from low-resolution thermal images. • Drones with infrared sensors capture thermal images for wild deer surveys in areas covered by dense canopies. • The objects within thermal imagery are small and less than 30 × 30 pixels. • Existing object detection models, trained on true-color images, struggle with small objects detection from thermal imagery. • Feature Pyramid Network fuses the feature information extracted by residual networks to construct multi-scale feature maps. • Enhanced Faster R-CNN with customized anchor boxes and multi-scale feature maps achieves an average precision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change and extreme weather events undermine smallholder household food and income security in many rural areas of developing countries. Nature-based solutions and the use of climate resilient and nutrient dense Neglected and Underutilized Species into the local farming system have been claimed to sustainably help farmers adapt to climate change and to manage risk more effectively. This paper investigated the potential implementation of three options based on the collective cultivation and management of olive groves and wild forests for production purposes in a mountain region of Nepal. The analysis was aimed at assessing the potential benefits of such strategy in comparison with the status-quo. The study conducted an ex-ante simulation exercise for evaluating three options: 1) 1500 ha of new and restored wild forests; 2) 500 ha of olive groves; and 3) A combination of option 1 and 2. We calculated the financial, economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits of such options using agricultural and economic data collected from representative households identified from a sample of 31 small, 9 medium, and 3 large farm households. To conduct the economic, social and environmental analysis (ESE), we calculated the Social Return on Investment and we integrated it into the economic analysis. Then we compared the results to assess which was the most profitable option. The results of the analysis showed that all three proposed options are stable with an Internal Rate of Return always above 27% with values over 100%. The greatest increase in terms of NPV is observed when shifting from the financial to the ESE analysis in options 1, 2, and 3 (+397.5%, +132.0%, +187.2% respectively) as the benefits increase more than the costs. The results further suggested that the integrated option is the most profitable one also in terms of labour generation. Indeed, we observed a substantial increase in the Return to Labour indicator especially in the ESE analysis (from 1.9 in the financial analysis to 2.8 in the economic analysis to 6.0 in the ESE analysis). This study provides evidence of the potential that similar strategies based on the use of local resources and species, if properly designed, implemented and managed, may have to restore the ecosystem and enhance the livelihoods of local communities. The most innovative element of this study is the proposed ESE analysis, which takes into account the social and environmental dimension besides the economic one. [Display omitted] • Olive growing would be a nature-based solution to sustainably diversify the local production system. • Assessing the benefits of the collective management of wild olive forests and olive orchards in a mountain region of Nepal • Investing in wild and domesticated olive would increase household income and generate labour in Western Nepal. • Investment in olive could have long-term economic, social, and environmental positive effects on smallholders' livelihoods. • The use of local resources and species could improve the resilience and well-being of other local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• It is critical to theorize equity in the context of equitable resilience. • Predefined visions of equity and transformative change hide contextual and intersectional agencies and experiences of risk. • In Jumla, Nepal, state-led interventions define equity as "equal distribution" that do not acknowledge social differences such as caste and gender. • Yet, focusing on caste and gender as indicators of marginalization also overlook contextual and dynamic influences on risk. • Equitable resilience requires recognizing intersectional inequalities and local agency, not predefined indicators of risk and vulnerability. Equitable resilience is an increasing focus of development policy, but there is still insufficient attention to how the framings of equity itself shape what, and who, is targeted through development efforts. Universalistic assumptions about climate risk or social marginalization can define equity in ways that hide dynamic and intersectional influences on what constitutes risk to whom under different circumstances. This paper investigates the implications of two different equity framings for resilience in Jumla District, western Nepal. Drawing on more than one hundred household surveys plus in-depth qualitative interviews in six villages, we find that state-led efforts to present post-civil war development as the "equal distribution" of roads and infrastructure, agricultural commercialization, and protection against systemic climate risk fail to reflect local experiences of risk, which are often expressed in terms of social exclusion rather than vulnerability to climate change. Yet, simultaneously, other efforts at building resilience that use caste and gender as indicators of social marginalization overlook how transitions in livelihoods and individual agency have changed vulnerability contexts for many people, or the increasing vulnerability to climate change of more landed farmers. The paper urges more critical attention to how normative framings of equity shape what, and for whom is considered equitable resilience, including assumptions about transformative change from analysts themselves. Representing risks and vulnerability in terms of socially marginalized groups alone might deny the dynamic, intersectional, and contextual interconnection of risks and social agency; and might impose unhelpful subjectivities of their own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maladaptation to climate change is often portrayed as arising from the unjust exclusion of vulnerable people. In turn, analysts have proposed knowledge co-production with marginalized groups as a form of transformative climate justice. This paper argues instead that maladaptation arises from a much deeper exclusion based upon the projection of inappropriate understandings of risk and social identity that are treated as unquestioned circumstances of justice. Drawing on social studies of science, the paper argues that the focus on co-production as an intentional act of inclusion needs to be considered alongside "deep" or "reflexive" co-production, which instead refers to the non-cognitive and unavoidable simultaneous generation of knowledge and social order. These processes have linked visions of planetary justice with an understanding of climate risk based on global atmospheric change, and an assumption that community forms an antidote to individualism. The paper uses a discussion of adaptation in western Nepal to illustrate how such deep forms of co-production have significantly reduced understandings of "what" adaptation is for, and "who" is included. Maladaptation, therefore, is not simply unjust implementations of an essentially fair model of adaptation, but also the allocation of exclusionary visions of what and for whom adaptation is for. Debates about transformative climate justice therefore need to understand how their critiques of classical liberal justice generate exclusions of their own, and to engage vulnerable people in reframing, rather than just receiving, circumstances of justice. There is also a need to examine how these circumstances remain unchallenged within environmental science and policy. • Maladaptation arises from inappropriate frameworks of climate risk and social identity. • Deep co-production analyses how circumstances of justice become unquestioned. • Transformative climate justice requires reframing, not only applying, circumstances of justice. • The example of Nepal shows how adaptation has avoided certain forms of vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on village-based data from Nepal, this paper explores the transferability of the Integrated Behavioural Model for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (IBM-WASH) to the clean cooking sector and its potential to elucidate how barriers to improved cookstove adoption and sustained use intersect at different scales. The paper also explores the potential of IBM-WASH, behaviour settings theory and domestication analysis to collectively inform effective behaviour change techniques and interventions that promote both adoption and sustained use of health-promoting technologies. Information on cookstove use in the community since 2012 enables valuable insights to be gained on how kitchen settings and associated cooking behaviour were re-configured as homes and stoves were re-built following the April 2015 earthquake. The methodological approach comprised of semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, direct observation and household surveys. The findings indicated that the IBM-WASH framework translated well to the improved cookstove sector, capturing key influences on clean cooking transitions across the model's three dimensions (context, psychosocial and technology) at all five levels. Understandings gained from utilising IBM-WASH were enhanced – especially at the individual and habitual levels – by domestication analysis and settings theory which elucidated how different cooking technologies were incorporated (or not) within physical structures, everyday lives and routine behaviour. The paper concludes that this combination of approaches has potential applicability for initiatives seeking to promote improved environmental health at community-wide scales. • Transferability of IBM-WASH to the cookstove sector is explored for the first time. • Data from post-earthquake Nepal is used to test this transferability. • We demonstrate that the framework translates well to the cookstove sector. • Findings from IBM-WASH are enhanced by domestication analysis and settings theory. • This combination of approaches has broader applicability for health initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Domestic wastewater and wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are key emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Quantifying these emissions in the present and future is crucial to tackle global climate change issues. As a developing country with few rural and urban wastewater treatment facilities, Nepal may have a unique opportunity to reduce future GHGs emissions by a proper selection of wastewater treatment technology. In this paper, the authors used Python programming to estimate the GHGs emissions from the domestic wastewater sector in Nepal under various technological development scenarios for 2020 to 2040 using the refined 2019 estimation methodology developed by Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Results show total equivalent CO 2 emission of 3829.43 and 4523.65 Gigagrams in 2020 and 2040, respectively. The 2020 value is seven times greater than Nepal's 2017 national estimates because this study considered rural population and updated methodology. Comparing the technology development scenarios with the Business as Usual scenario, the highest GHGs reduction could be achieved by hybrid constructed wetlands (69.20%) followed by a combined anaerobic and aerobic system with biogas recovery for energy generation (61.72%). Further accuracy may be attained only through the actual measurement of WWTPs emissions and country-specific emission factors. Thus, this paper proposes GHGs estimation of future scenarios portraying urban and rural populations may be invaluable to policymakers of GHGs mitigation for selection of feasible WWTPs, especially in developing countries with limited wastewater treatment facilities and wastewater activity data. [Display omitted] • Complete sewer coverage scenario can significantly contribute GHGs emission. • Higher N 2 O emission observed from most modern wastewater treatment technologies. • Combined anaerobic and aerobic plant with biogas generation suited for urban area. • Substantial increase in emissions found when rural wastewater is considered. • Hybrid constructed wetlands most suited for GHGs reduction in the rural area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Widespread male out-migration presents major challenges to the sustainability of existing collective irrigation systems. However, the effects of socio-spatial changes on collective resource governance systems remain unknown. This paper addresses this gap by building a synthesis of translocality and Feminist Political Ecology (FPE). Translocality examines the socio-spatial interconnectedness of rural societies in the context of out-migration. FPE explores how changing gender and social relations shape resource governance. A translocal Feminist Political Ecology framework (tFPE) contextualizes resource governance within translocal social flows, and captures (i) translocal resource governance, (ii) translocal social relations, and (iii) translocal aspirations. Drawing from qualitative interviews and participatory methods on two farmer-managed irrigation systems in Far Western Nepal, I illustrate the complexity, intersectionality and ambiguity of translocal social relations in collective resource governance. Translocal resource governance is shaped by changing household and labor relations marked by remittances, and translocal flows of social and human resources, ideas and knowledge, e.g. migrants' advice via phone on when and how to irrigate. Translocal social relations entail marginalized groups, i.e., women and elderly people, providing increased labor contributions and possibly receiving migrants' support in the form of advice and networks. However, authority and power relations are sustained in resource governance by mostly upper caste men. Translocal aspirations to the home village by both migrants and non-migrants is ambivalent and leads them to hope for frequent visits home, while aspirations and shame turn them away from agriculture towards earning higher incomes through migration. The tFPE framework emphasizes important but understudied translocal social relations and aspirations in collective resource governance, water, irrigation and migration research. By linking translocality and FPE, I show how translocal resource governance, social relations and aspirations change everyday practices and gender, caste and labor relations in irrigation, and how we may understand the water-migration nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nepal is going through a major socio-economic transition in rural areas and hence in forest management practices, leading to changes in and evolution of new forest-people relationships. Community forests are experiencing an ecological transition resulting a new pattern of growth, regeneration and diversity in forest composition. The ecological transition of forest corresponds to the shifting local collective actions in community forestry which are emerging from the new socio-economic dynamics in rural areas such as income-diversification, declining subsistence utilization of forest resources and outmigration of the rural population. However, these changes are highly differentiated and variable. The hilly areas are experiencing remarkable forest cover changes than in the lowlands of Terai. In this paper, we examine the evolving intersection between new forest transition and community collective action in Nepal. We draw our analysis on the comparative case study of four villages from three different ecological regions. Our findings show that the forest transition is not static, but a dynamic process shaped by diverse local and external factors. Further, declining utilization of forests for subsistence uses has led to a new dynamic in community collective action which has played a central role in driving forest transition. Community participation in forest management is also declining. Hence, we call for reconceptualizing local collective action in this changed context which can help revise forest policies and reimagine forest institutions that can better respond to the socio-economic changes of the mountain landscape and revitalize local collective actions. • Nepal's forests experiencing ecological changes. • Socio-economic changes in Nepal leading to shift in community collective action. • Interplay between forest transition and community collective action is discussed. • Community participation in forest management activities and utilization are declining. • Reimagining forest policies and institutions to respond these changes is urgent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the localization of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (hereafter 1325) on women, peace, and security (WPS) and its successor resolutions, which call for equal participation of women in conflict resolution, peace negotiations, and postconflict development. The article asks: How, and to what extent, does 1325 and any accompanying National Action Plan (NAP) address grassroots women's issues to transform the WPS agenda in Nepal and Sri Lanka's postwar development? Nepal's NAP (2011–2016) is applauded for its localization efforts. Because Sri Lanka does not yet have a NAP, we explore its informal adoption of 1325. Using interviews and a review of policy documents, this article demonstrates that grassroots women's lived experiences support 1325, even as they are often left out of 1325 processes, both state-led and NGO-led. The paper argues that inclusive and bottom-up localization of 1325 and NAPs is critical to achieving the WPS agenda. • This article demonstrates that grassroots women's lived experiences support the principles of the UNSCR 1325 and Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, even as they are often left out of 1325 processes, both state-led and NGO-led. • The paper calls women's NGOs, governments, and policymakers to engage grassroots women – the 'most local' women – and prioritize their needs in the WPS and National Action Plans (NAPs) development and implementation processes, and to ensure transformational changes in grassroots women's lives in post-conflict Nepal and Sri Lanka. • Conflict impacts all women, but the experiences of grassroots women (such as ex-combatants, war widows, Dalit women, Muslim women, Tamil women, women with disabilities, or other poor women are different from privileged women. Inclusive grassroots engagement must correct issues facing the most vulnerable Nepali and Sri Lankan women. • Demonstrates that intersectional and bottom-up localization of WPS and NAPs is critical to achieving the WPS agenda, simply naming or increasing the numbers of women in WPS activities and policies is not enough. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper is exhaustive documentation made from the post-earthquake damage survey conducted to analyse the major reasons for structural failure during six earthquakes, occurred over the last decade in the Northeastern region of the Indian subcontinent. In the beginning, an attempt is made to highlight the seismological reasons for the vulnerability of this region. Further, it presents the available building typology of this region and makes an attempt to analyse the reasons for the damage/collapse of each type of building. The reasons are primarily found to be lacking in the implementation of many well-known design guidelines, which are available in the design codes/well-accepted design documents. This document may be of immense help to the practising engineer to underline and visualise many common yet neglected issues during the design and construction of structures. This may, in turn, help to reduce the vulnerability of the structures of earthquake-prone developing countries. 1. This paper presents detailed documentation of the damages or collapsed buildings/dwelling units in the Northeastern region of the Indian subcontinent and Nepal due to the six seismic events over the decade. 2. Many people of this region belong to very poor socio-economic conditions. In fact, they are not very concerned about the sudden damages which earthquakes may create. 3. Initially, the reason for frequently occurring low to moderate earthquakes is attempted to be explained from the seismological and geological point of view. 4. The typological nature of the structures, buildings, and habitats are discussed in detail to understand and visualize the physical mechanism behind the damage of each type. 5. Along with the detailed case studies, remedial measures are also reiterated, most of which are known by academia but not implemented because of the mindset of civil engineering professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Novel ensemble model is developed to break the limitations of individual models. • Powerful tree-based models and tabular neural networks are effectively integrated. • Fuzy prediction is proposed to address inherent uncertainty in grade judgement. • Inspirations for anti-seismic work is provided by interpreting the ensemble model. In this paper, we develop a novel ensemble model for seismic building damage prediction that leverages machine learning algorithms of two completely different mechanisms, tree-based models and tabular neural networks. The ensemble model can break the limitations of individual models and elevate the predictive power to a superior level. Ensemble techniques of stacking and boosting are utilized for model integration, and an optimization method is also proposed to eliminate the negative sub models based on the stacking coefficient map and the boosting process. On the database of the 2015 Nepal earthquake including 762,094 building samples, our developed ensemble model using boosting technique outperforms any other individual models and its accuracy also surpasses that of another research using the same database. Moreover, the technique of fuzzy prediction is proposed to address the inherent errors in the database caused by volunteers' subjectivity, which preserves the uncertainty between two adjacent damage grades, and the accuracy in the testing set is increased to 76.37% by applying it. Finally, by using the Shapley additive explanations method, our ensemble model is shown to have explicit physical significance and provides valuable insights for seismic mitigation efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nepalese buildings are typically constructed using unreinforced masonry (URM) as the lateral load-bearing system. In the 2015 Nepal Gorkha earthquake several URM buildings suffered heavy damage. The limited economic resources available in the country and the challenge of strengthening a large portfolio of buildings highlight the need for low-cost retrofitting techniques. This paper presents a large-scale experimental campaign aimed at quantifying the seismic performance of a typical URM wall when strengthened with splints and bandages. This represents one of the retrofit techniques that are most widely-used in Nepal. A 5 × 3 m URM wall was constructed using 1:6 cement–sand mortar as per the mechanical properties identified by material testing in Nepal. The URM wall was tested under a two-way ramp cyclic loading. Typical crack patterns associated with URM were observed. The wall was subsequently retrofitted with 8 mm rebars as splints and bandages and tested to failure. The results show that the strength of the retrofitted wall is almost twice that of the URM wall. The observed crack damage improved from EMS-98 Grade 2, with horizontal and diagonal shear cracks in the mortar bed, to Grade 1, with hairline cracks on the rendered splints and bandages. Overall, the experiment demonstrated the efficiency of this practical, low-cost retrofitting technique that is tailored to traditional Nepalese URM buildings. This work can be used to advise local stakeholders in the construction industry as well as to act as a benchmark to improve the reliability of fragility functions for URM buildings in Nepal. • Benchmark full-scale reaction frame test on a typical unreinforced masonry wall in Nepal. • Experimentally validation of a retrofitting technique that is being used in Nepal on school buildings. • Investigation of the influence of a low-cost repair technique after earthquake damage on unreinforced masonry walls. • Proposing simplified repair and retrofitting guidelines based on experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies ordinal logistic regression to a survey collected from 225 rural households across four different districts of Nepal to analyze the nonpayment behavior of households at rural water schemes. This study finds that non-payment behavior is highly influenced by a household's perception of how others pay rather than their own paying ability. This shows that the trust issue, which stems from an apparent n-prisoners dilemma, negatively reinforces free-riding behavior among the households. Further, the study also indicates that cultural and geographical distribution influence households relative positions on the nonpayment spectrum. • Language Correction accepted. • Correction in reference section. • Suggested changes accepted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecosystems are dynamic forms of nature, intuitively affected by natural processes and human interventions, depending on various drivers of changes and management responses. Understanding the ecosystem dynamics (ED) from the perspective of both the drivers of changes and the effectiveness of policy−institution−program (PIP) responses is crucial for nature sustainability. PIP response to a management problem, as a sectoral intervention, has been analysed in the past; however, national-level assessment of drivers of ecosystem dynamics and its PIP responses has not been done so far. This paper is aimed at cyclical assessment and chronological analysis (1960–2020) of the appropriateness and effectiveness of the PIP responses to the drivers of ED, taking the case of Nepal. Using a driver-pressure-state-impact-response (DPSIR) framework, we have assessed 38 drivers of ED on a decadal basis and analysed > 30 policy instruments as well as 15 periodic development plans (i.e., five-year plans and three-year plans) that have been developed yet. Moreover, we have carried out 300 household surveys to understand local people's demand for ecosystem management. Based on various qualitative and quantitative analyses, we have portrayed pressure, state, and impact of various economic, demographic, technological, governance, globalization, and other drivers, including PIP response to address the drivers of changes. We found that the drivers of ED are non-linear and multifaceted, but the PIP responses are sectoral and incremental (i.e., piecemeal gradation to the previous efforts). Instead of characterization of drivers of ED and public demand, domestic PIP responses are largely influenced by global environmental discourse. Our findings are critical in understanding dynamic drivers of ecosystems and pathways of PIP responses, which might support policymakers and scholars in Nepal and other developing countries in the Himalayas to recalibrate PIP measures for sustainable resource management by suitably addressing the drivers of ED. • The drivers of ecosystem dynamics are non-linear and multifaceted. • Policy-institution-programs responses are mostly sectoral and incremental. • Responses are influenced by global environmental discourse rather than public demand. • Current approach of ecosystem management is insufficient to deal with ecosystem dynamics. • Coordinated policy entrepreneurship is recommended for synergistic policy outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We evaluate the impact of a value chain development project on agricultural productivity focusing on differences by gender and ethnicity. • We decompose the impact by ethnicity and by gender. • The project impact is higher for non-minority and male-headed households than for ethnic minority and female-headed households. • Results suggest that the agricultural productivity gap by ethnicity and by gender is mainly driven by endowment effects, primarily land and labor endowments. • Findings highlight the need for targeted support to minority and female producers in value chain development projects. This paper estimates the impact of an inclusive agricultural value chain development project on agricultural productivity and decomposes the impact by gender and ethnicity of producers. The intervention sought to alleviate poverty among small-scale producers by increasing agricultural productivity and lowering transaction costs. It also specifically targeted minority and female producers to ensure inclusivity. We use primary survey data from over 2,500 households in rural Nepal. We estimate the impact on agricultural productivity by employing a treatment effect estimator, and decompose it by gender and ethnicity using the Kitagawa-Oaxaca-Blinder (KOB) decomposition method. We find that the project has a positive impact on agricultural productivity, but the impact is higher for non-minority and male-headed households than for minority and female-headed households, respectively. The ethnicity productivity gap is smaller in the treatment group than in comparison group. Even though male-headed households have consistently higher productivity, the gender gap in agricultural productivity is smaller in the treatment group compared to the comparison group. KOB decomposition shows that the ethnicity- and gender- specific differential impacts are mainly driven by differential endowment effects, primarily land and labor endowments. Results suggest that the project reduced the ethnicity- and gender-specific productivity gaps, although it did not eliminate them entirely. These findings highlight the need for targeted support to vulnerable producers including ethnic minority and female producers. Specifically targeted land tenure security programs can ensure that vulnerable producers can harness benefits in a manner which could help narrow productivity differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• English-medium instruction (EMI) program is a space of unequal emotions. • The socio-emotional selection of EMI programs is embedded in the neoliberal imagination. • Neoliberal desire for EMI creates a discourse of mixed emotions and inequalities. • Examining emotions highlights the scope of improvement for students' wellbeing. This article reports on students' affective dimension in English-medium instruction (EMI) university programs in Nepal. To unpack the affective dimension of EMI students, I conducted interviews and focus group discussions with students from different disciplines (e.g., business, nursing, pharmacy, and education). The data analysis revealed that the social and cognitive process of selecting an EMI program is embedded in "neoliberal imagination," in which they perceive EMI as a way to upward socioeconomic and symbolic mobility. Such neoliberal desire has implicitly appropriated EMI as a neoliberal endowment and created a discourse of unequal emotions. While EMI has engendered positive emotions (e.g., hope and pride) for some students, other students from non-EMI schooling backgrounds experience negative emotions (e.g., shame and anxiety). The paper, therefore, argues that the neoliberal desire for EMI can create a discourse of mixed emotions, also leading to emotional challenges and discrimination against some students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate variability and insufficient irrigation are primary constraints to stable and higher agricultural productivity and food security in Nepal. Agriculture is the largest global freshwater user, and integration of surface- and ground-water use is frequently presented as an strategy for increasing efficiency as well as climate change adaptation. However, conjunctive management (CM) planning often ignores demand-side requirements and a broader set of sustainable development considerations, including ecosystem health and economics of different development strategies. While there is generic understanding of conjunctive use, detailed technical knowhow to realize the CM is lacking in Nepal. This article presents a holistic framework through literature reviews, stakeholders consultations and expert interviews for assessing CM and implementation prospects from a systems-level perspective. We demonstrate the framework through a case study in Western Nepal, where climatic variability and a lack of irrigation are key impediments to increased agricultural productivity and sustainable development. Results show that knowledge of water resources availability is good and that of water demand low in the Western Terai. Additional and coordinated investments are required to improve knowledge gaps as well as access to irrigation. There is therefore a need to assess water resources availability, water access, use and productivity, to fill the knowledge gaps in order to pave pathways for CM. This paper also discusses some strategies to translate prospects of conjunctive management into implementation. • Customized framework development for assessing prospects for conjunctive management. • Conjunctive management status in western Nepal assessed by applying the framework. • Knowledge on water availability and demand are moderate and low, respectively. • Additional and coordinated investments required to improve access to irrigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a bi-level network interdiction model to increase the effectiveness of attempting to disrupt a human trafficking network under a resource constrained environment. To model the behavior of the trafficker, we present a new interpretation of the traditional maximum flow network problem in which the arc capacity parameter serves as a proxy for the trafficker's desirability to travel along segments of the network. The objective for the anti-human trafficking stakeholder is to invest resources in detection and intervention efforts throughout the network in a manner that minimizes the trafficker's expected maximum desirability of operating on the network. Interdictions are binary, and their effects are stochastic (i.e., there is a positive probability that a disruption attempt is unsuccessful). We present a multi-stage version of the model, which incorporates the effect of interdictions becoming more or less successful over time. Using a genetic algorithm that uses a pseudo-utility ratio for the repair operation, we solve multiple problem instances for a case study of the road network in the Eastern Development Region of Nepal and multiple grid networks. We then discuss observations regarding the impact of probabilistic interdiction success and the implications it has for optimal policies to disrupt a human trafficking network with limited resources. • Combines human trafficking expertise with network interdiction models. • Network interdiction model with decision-dependent uncertainty and multiple stages. • Computational studies demonstrate the genetic algorithm's performance. • Provides two-stage policy insights for multi-stage decision-dependent probabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On average, environmental income accounts for more than a quarter of rural household income in tropical and sub-tropical countries. One way to increase incomes from wild-harvested products is cultivation. In a landmark paper, Homma (1992) identified four phases describing the economic dynamics of environmental product cultivation, emphasising product scarcity. We reviewed literature that applied and/or discussed Homma's model. This suggested that additional factors, beyond resource scarcity, induce the transition to cultivation. We propose an alternative model of the dynamics of environmental product cultivation pathways, emphasising stock size, contextual, harvester, and mediating factors. The model has four possible product-level outcomes: scarcity induced cultivation, economic extinction, abundance with cultivation, and continued sole wild harvesting. We investigated this model empirically through the case of commercial medicinal plant harvesting in Nepal, using harvester interviews (n = 362) and published monthly price data for the most commonly traded products (n = 12) during a nine-year period. We found evidence of all four possible product-level outcomes, with "abundance with cultivation" being the most common. This supports that scarcity is not sufficient to explain cultivation processes; harvester decision-making processes and contextual and mediating factors must also be assessed. • The first systematic review of Homma's model of extractive reserves. • New model of the economic dynamics of environmental product cultivation pathways. • Outcomes: scarcity induced cultivation, extinct, abundant with/without cultivation. • All four outcomes documented in empirical case. • Harvester characteristics are significant for whether cultivation is undertaken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Earthquake damage to buildings is predicted using machine learning. • Rehabilitation interventions are predicted using machine learning. • Performance of several machine learning algorithms is assessed. • XGBoost outperforms other machine learning models. Predicting damage grade and rehabilitation interventions is important, especially in the aftermath of moderate to strong earthquakes as prioritization of post-earthquake housing recovery needs information regarding the damage extent. Damage prediction is generally performed using fragility functions, which are generally associated with large uncertainties. Moreover, availability and representativeness of fragility functions for a region affected by an earthquake is not always a given. A more realistic prediction of damage might be obtained from methods that rely on relevant attributes of affected buildings. Artificial intelligence-based formulations have huge prospect in this regard. Using the ground shaking intensity measure and detailed building specific features of 549,251 buildings affected by the 2015 Gorkha earthquake in Nepal, this paper assesses efficacy of four common machine learning algorithms for damage grade and rehabilitation intervention prediction. Decision tree, random forest, XGBoost, and logistic regression algorithms are used to prepare machine learning models and test their performance. The XGBoost algorithm is found to predict building collapse and strengthening more accurately than the other algorithms. Moreover, feature importance from the XGBoost model identifies 19 of the top 20 most important features as relevant for both damage grade and rehabilitation intervention prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explain how China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) drives urban transformation in Nepal reconfiguring geopolitical and geoeconomic relations and remaking the sociopolitical, cultural and material fabric of hitherto peripheral spaces. Given that BRI infrastructures materialize in parallel with Chinese-funded reconstruction projects, we pay attention to the role of post-disaster politics to unravel how ongoing urban transformation does not only affect the present and the future but also people's histories and post-disaster memories by treating places of (re)building as empty of previous life and history. By drawing on 16 months of fieldwork, we show that despite the evident role of the BRI as an agent of urban transformation, the materialization of most BRI projects depends on geopolitical rivalries, negotiations, unstable local coalitions and escalating social contestation. We conclude that in the post-disaster era, BRI projects have become new vehicles towards Naya [new] Nepal, along with many other infrastructural myths that preceded the country's modern history. Nonetheless, the Naya urban Nepal that is emerging from the ruins of the past is contested and uncertain, a far cry from the days of the Panchayat regime and the civil war, when such gargantuan projects were rarely challenged by Nepali people. This is the unique trajectory of Silk Road urbanization in Nepal: an ultimate path to reach a long due rural-to-urban transition that is inextricably linked with decades of infrastructural violence and precarity and strongly shaped by people's struggles against the unequal geographies of BRI-driven urban transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Application of uncapacitated P-median problem to obtain clustered tweets. • Applying a novel hybrid genetic bat algorithm on uncapacitated P-median problem. • Generation of a similarity matrix via Latent Dirichlet Allocation model. • Determining needs of the victims after an earthquake using Twitter data. Due to the rapid incline in the number of documents along with social media usage, text categorization has become an important concept. There are tasks required to be fulfilled during the text categorization, such as extracting useful data from different perspectives, reducing the high feature space dimension, and improving effectiveness. In order to accomplish these tasks, feature selection, and feature extraction gain importance. This paper investigates how to solve feature selection and extraction problems. Also, this study aims to decide which topics are the focus of a document. Moreover, the Twitter data-set is utilized as a document and an Uncapacitated P-Median Problem (UPMP) is applied to make clustering. In this study, UPMP is used on Twitter data collection for the first time to collect clustered tweets. Therefore, a novel hybrid genetic bat algorithm (HGBA) is proposed to solve the UPMP for our case. The proposed novel approach is applied to analyze the Twitter data-set of the Nepal earthquake. The first part of the analysis includes the data pre-processing stage. The Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) method is applied to the pre-processed text. After that, a similarity (distance) matrix is generated by utilizing the Jensen Shannon Divergence (JSD) model. The study's main goal is to use Twitter to assess the needs of victims during and after a disaster. To evaluate the applicability of the proposed approach, experiments are conducted on the OR-Library data-set. The results demonstrate that the proposed approach successfully extracts topics and categorizes text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vulnerability assessment is a crucial method for earthquake-prone areas to manage seismic risk. This paper develops an Extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost)-based model to assess the seismic vulnerability of buildings in Kavrepalanchok, Nepal. The vulnerability assessment model is trained based on the building survey data of the 2015 Gorkha earthquake. To rectify the impacts of class imbalance in raw data, the Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique (SMOTE) technique is adopted in the data preprocessing stage. Then, XGBoost models for the 3 selected target variables are developed respectively. Finally, the performances of the developed models are evaluated, and the significant features that influence the vulnerability are investigated using the SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) technique. Important findings are: (1) The developed SMOTE-XGBoost model for the overall building damage achieves the highest macro f1 score of 0.729 compared with other machine learning models. (2) The SMOTE technique is favorable when the label requiring more attention is the minor group (e.g., severe damage). (3) The foundation type, the roof type, and the building age are identified as the most significant features for the overall building damage grade. The developed learning model can be used as a decision tool to automate building vulnerability assessment in seismic areas using pre-earthquake data, providing decision support for disaster risk reduction at an early stage. • An ensemble learning approach is developed for building seismic vulnerability assessment. • The survey data of the 2015 Nepal earthquake is adopted to develop the model. • The developed model to predict the overall building damage achieves the highest accuracy. • Significant features that influence the vulnerability are investigated using the SHAP technique. • Building foundation type and roof type are identified as the most significant features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Demonstrates the urban-rural disparity of community resilience via survey questionnaire data. • Reveals the difference in dominant resilience factors between urban and rural communities. • Unfolds the interactions of urbanization and community resilience factors in practices • Highlights public-centric, context-specific resilience policies in coping with urbanization. Geo-physical, socio-cultural, politico-institutional, and techno-economic context affect communities' resilience competency to disasters. As the contextual characteristics of urban and rural communities differ, they may perform differently in resilience practice. Taking a case of the 2015 Nepal earthquake, this paper explored community resilience in urban and rural areas by employing binary multilevel models against the monthly survey questionnaire data on relief progress at first; and then adopted cross-level interaction models to examine whether and how urbanization would modify the contributions of resilience factors to post-disaster performances of communities. The results showed an urban-rural disparity of community resilience, with rural residents reporting higher relief scores than their urban counterparts. Whilst, resilience factors, including leadership, fairness, and preparedness, appeared to be crucial to both urban and rural communities, problem solving, information and communication, and civic engagement were only contributing to rural communities. Communities featured with different levels of urbanization do not uniformly experience the impacts of community resilience factors. Urbanization was proofed to interfere with the effects of some community factors like problem solving, information and communication, civic engagement, but reinforce that of the preparedness factor. These findings enrich our understanding of the urban-rural disparity in community resilience, and shed light on the importance of public-centric and context-specific resilience policies in coping with the contextual changes resulted through urbanization processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A hallmark of complex humanitarian emergencies is the collective exposure, often over extended periods of time, to political violence in the forms of war, terrorism, political intimidation, repression, unlawful detention, and forced displacement. Populations in complex humanitarian emergencies have higher risks of multiple co-morbidities: mental disorders, infectious diseases, malnutrition, and chronic non-communicable diseases. However, there is wide variation in the health impacts both across and within humanitarian emergencies. Syndemic theory is an approach to conceptualizing disease and social determinants to understand differential patterns of multi-morbidity, elucidate underlying mechanisms, and better design interventions. Syndemic theory, if applied to complex humanitarian emergencies, has the potential to uncover origins of localized patterns of multi-morbidity resulting from political violence and historical inequities. In this paper, we present two case studies based on mixed-methods research to illustrate how syndemic models can be applied in complex humanitarian emergencies. First, in a Nepal case study, we explore different patterns of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression co-morbidity among female former child soldiers returning home after war. Despite comparable exposure to war-related traumas, girl soldiers in high-caste Hindu communities had 63% co-morbidity of PTSD and depression, whereas girl soldiers in communities with mixed castes and religions, had 8% PTSD prevalence, but no cases of PTSD and depression co-morbidity. In the second case study, we explore the high rates of type 2 diabetes during a spike in political violence and population displacement. Despite low rates of obesity and other common risk factors, Somalis in Ethiopia experienced rising cases of and poor outcomes from type-2 diabetes. Political violence shapes healthcare resources, diets, and potentially, this epidemiological anomaly. Based on these case studies we propose a humanitarian syndemic research agenda for observational and intervention studies, with the central focus being that public health efforts need to target violence prevention at family, community, national, and global levels. • Violence is a key feature of syndemic interactions in many contexts. • In complex humanitarian emergencies, political violence exacerbates multi-morbidity. • A syndemic approach could integrate fragmented and siloed health responses in complex humanitarian emergencies. • A syndemic approach demands mitigating the roots of political violence and resulting multi-morbidities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes on a novel perspective to the overloading of distribution substations by considering the common-pool characteristics of electric infrastructure capacity. Using firm- and substation-level data from Nepal, the results provide evidence of common-pool resource (CPR) problems across substations' ownership boundaries: firms with captive substations experience fewer and shorter unplanned outages than firms connected to shared substations. Based on these findings, private investments in captive substations emerge as a coping mechanism for firms against unreliable electricity supply. A generalized cost-benefit analysis framework for such investments is developed and used to quantify the benefits to Nepalese non-residential customers. • We provide empirical evidence that electricity reliability at distribution-substation-level shows common-pool resource characteristics. • Our results show that firms with private substations experience fewer and shorter unplanned power outages than firms connected to public substations. • Private investments in substations by a firm or a group of firms emerge as a coping mechanism against power outages where public electric utilities do not have sufficient capital to maintain substations. • The benefits from privatization of distribution substations for non-residential customers would generate substantial economic gains to Nepal's economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A novel multi-class factorization machine approach with deep neural network is developed. • It performs post-disaster building damage assessment in an automatic and data-driven manner. • A total of 39,352 buildings in 2015 Napa earthquake are taken as a case study for demonstration. • It improves the classification performance over many other popular machine learning methods. • The well-trained model can significantly reduce the burden in earthquake field investigations. This paper develops a hybrid neural network architecture named multi-class factorization machine with deep neural network (multi-FMDNN) to fuse multi-source information for the automatic post-earthquake building damage evaluation. The novel algorithm is a combination of the factorization machine (FM) and the deep neural network (DNN), which adopts the one-vs-all strategy to fuse results from multiple base classifiers. 39,352 buildings affected by the 2015 Nepal earthquake are taken as a case study to validate the effectiveness of the proposed multi-FMDNN. Experimental results confirm that the proposed model outperforms over many other popular machine learning methods due to the powerful feature learning ability, ultimately reaching an overall accuracy, macro F1-score, and weighted F1-score in the value of 0.703, 0.737, and 0.702, respectively. Features associated with building structural characteristics are found to contribute more to classifying damage grades precisely. Besides, data preprocessing for data cleaning, encoding, and transformation is a necessary step to bring additional performance enhancement. For significance in the knowledge aspect, a novel multi-FMDNN algorithm is developed, which is superior in extracting both low- and high-order feature representation automatically from large volumes of destroyed buildings-related data and learning the optimal feature interactions simultaneously to pursue more accurate classification. For significance in the application aspect, the predicted results provide deep insights into a better understanding of the building vulnerability in seismic areas and inform data-driven decisions in disaster relief efforts. A promising future scope is to make full use of the available pre-event data along with some post-event data, which is possible to return fairly promising predictions and reduce the burden in earthquake field investigations for rapid responses. In future work, advanced techniques associated with data augment, hyperparameter optimization, and others will be implemented to constantly improve the overall accuracy and generalizability of the prediction model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

About two-thirds of Nepal's final energy is consumed by households. Traditional solid biomass constitutes most of the households' energy needs, and cooking is by far their most important energy-consuming activity. This paper analyzes household energy use patterns in Nepal through the year 2051 based on a bottom-up simulation accounting framework for seven provinces and the capital city, differentiated by rural and urban areas and seven end-uses. Six scenarios involving different growth paths for socio-economic and energy system development are considered. Unlike in developed economies, the study finds that country's household energy demand will continue to rise in the future, but it is heterogeneous across the provinces. With the government's recent SDG7 initiatives, electricity is expected to play a key role in the household's future energy mix, although biomass use will remain significant but in declining trends. The study also identifies priority provinces where additional action is needed to improve access to clean and affordable modern energy services. Assertive policy initiatives are needed beyond 2030 to pursue clean energy market establishments and end-use technological developments for the expected growth of household clean energy demand. • Household end-use energy demand by province and regions through 2051 is analyzed. • Final energy demand reduction is significant under alternative scenarios wrt baseline. • Cooking remains major household end-use activities up to 2031 across the scenarios. • Electricity is key, but biomass remains significant in future energy-mix under SDG7. • Priority provinces/end-uses are identified where clean energy services are lacking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of a study on the characteristics of vertical-to-horizontal ratio (V/H) of 5% damped acceleration spectra for Indian ground motion records. Preliminary analysis indicates that at least 50% of the records exceed the Indian seismic design code considered norm of 2/3 at both the short and long period ranges. In addition, currently there are no V/H spectral ratio models available for India and the global models do not capture the trend across all the periods efficiently. Therefore, new ground motion models for the V/H spectral ratio are derived for two of the active tectonic regions of India: the Western Himalayas and the North-East India. Moment magnitude, focal depth, distance, site soil class, and focal mechanism are considered while deriving these models for a wide range of spectral periods (0.01–10s). The goodness of these models is verified through comparison with other globally available V/H models. • New V/H spectral ratio ground motion models for the two most active regions of India-the Western Himalayas (WH) and the North-East India (NE) are derived in the present study. • Comparison of estimates from the current model for the 2015 M w 7.9 Nepal earthquake highlights the goodness of the model at both near and far field sites. • Higher short period V/H ratios are observed in the dataset as well as the estimates, which exceed the 2/3rd threshold value proposed by the Indian Seismic code of design IS 1893. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable energy plays a crucial role in both climate change mitigation and adaptation in highly climate-vulnerable nations such as Nepal. This paper reviews various types of renewable energy technologies and their status, potential for adoption, relationship to climate change, and mitigative and adaptive roles in Nepal. Nepal has installed micro-hydro projects, solar power, improved cooking stoves, biogas technology, improved water mills, and wind energy to mitigate and adapt to climate change. There is a growing potential for renewable energy development in Nepal, such as hydropower, solar, wind energy, biogas, and improved cooking stoves. Roughly 70% of Nepal's energy consumption is generated from traditional energy sources while renewable energy accounts for approximately three percent. The gradual increase in the use of renewable energy has reduced greenhouse gas emissions and enhanced carbon sequestration. By adopting renewable energy technologies, Nepal has reduced emissions by 221,129 tCO 2 e from 2017 to 2018. Nepal's second Nationally Determined Contribution targets a 15% increase in national energy use from renewables with a reduction of 23% of CO 2 emissions by 2030 using biogas and improved cooking systems. Furthermore, a significant increase in the adoption of renewable energy has become a pivotal strategy in adaptation to climate change in social, health, and economic sectors resulting in time savings, alternative income sources, improved health and educational status, local job opportunities, and the promotion of social capital. The benefits of adapting to climate change and mitigating CO 2 emissions via renewable energy are significant at the local, national, and international levels. This study recommends that the government of Nepal focus work on energy policy reviews to address local energy demand and climate change issues by utilizing renewable energy resources at the local level, which has global implications. • Suitable, potential renewable energy technologies in Nepal. • The relationship between energy and climate change. • Relevant data on energy and climate change in tables and figures. • Social, economic, and environmental benefits of renewable energy. • Climate change adaptation and mitigation via renewable energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The seismic resilience of regional areas is addressed using multi-source information fusion. • The D -S fusion rule is merged with the K-means cluster to obtain the finalized BPAs. • Defuzzification is implemented to obtain an overall value for the seismic resilience. • A case study in Nepal is used to examine the practicability of the proposed approach. • Building foundation type, internal wall type, and population density are the most sensitive factors. This paper proposes a hybrid information fusion approach that integrates the Dempster-Shafer (D-S) evidence theory and cluster analysis, in order to assess the resilience of regional areas against earthquakes at an early stage. The developed resilience assessment framework involves indicators within geological, building, and social dimensions. Basic probability assignments (BPAs) of evidence are determined based on mass functions (MFs) firstly. Subsequently, these BPAs are fused by a new evidence fusion method incorporating the K -means clustering. The proposed evidence fusion method comprises two steps, namely intra-evidence fusion and inter-evidence fusion, to mitigate the adverse effects of conflicts in the multi-source evidence. Defuzzification is implemented on the fused BPA to obtain a representative value for the quantitative evaluation of seismic resilience. A global sensitivity analysis (GSA) is employed to investigate the impacts of various indicators on the resilience of regional areas. A case study in Nepal is used to examine the practicability and validity of the proposed approach. In the case study, the seismic resilience of Nepal at the district level is assessed in a quantitative manner. The research results imply that: (1) There are 84.4% of districts that possess a relatively low overall seismic resilience within the country of Nepal. (2) Building foundation type, internal wall type, and population density are the most sensitive factors contributing to the degree of resilience. (3) The proposed approach tends to provide more rational assessment results with conflicting evidence, compared with the conventional fusion method. The developed approach can be used as a decision tool to estimate regional resilience and provide insights into proactive control and damage mitigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research in Umbria, Italy, has shown that landslide susceptibility is controlled by a process called path-dependency, which describes how past landslides control the locations of future landslides. To date, landslide path-dependency has only been characterised in Italy. This raises the question of whether this process occurs in other geomorphic settings, and thus whether path-dependency should be more universally included in landslide susceptibility assessments. Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to investigate and quantify landslide path dependency in the Nepal Himalaya. This is achieved by applying several path dependent metrics to three monsoon-triggered landslide inventories for the central-eastern Nepal Himalaya. These inventories were developed at two different spatial and temporal resolutions. As such, we aim not just to quantify landslide path-dependency, but also to assess whether path dependency characteristics are resolution-dependent. We find strong evidence that landslide path dependency is occurring in Nepal, with all three inventories having more overlap between past and new landslides than expected from a random distribution, and a tentative observation that the expected degree of overlap between landslides decreases with time. Finally, whilst path-dependency is observable across both of the investigated inventory resolutions, we find that the rates and magnitudes of the quantified path dependent metrics are sensitive to inventory length, study region size and the size/type of landslides mapped. Overall, our results corroborate the path-dependency observations from Italy, confirming that this process does occur in other geomorphic settings, and thus suggesting that path-dependency should be explicitly and universally considered in landslide susceptibility approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a detailed design, cost estimation and sensitivity analysis for establishing a CO 2 capture plant for use in urea manufacturing in the context of Nepal. The commercially proven post combustion capture process, monoethanolamine (MEA) solvent based scrubbing, was designed with the help of Aspen Plus to determine the size of scrubbing towers, accessory equipment's and the utilities for capturing 90% of CO 2 from the flue gas. The flue gas stream data was obtained from a local cement industry. Our analysis showed that absorber and stripper columns of 10 m and 7 m packing height respectively are required to capture approximately 250 Ktons/year of CO 2. The columns will have packing diameters of 6 m and 4 m respectively. The total capital cost and the production cost for the plant of this scale was calculated to be $10 million and $21 million respectively. The bulk of the total production cost, $18 million per year, was the utility (electricity) cost for regenerating the solvent. The profitability of the capture plant was found to be highly sensitive to the electricity cost which presents a huge opportunity for Nepal. Based on our estimate, the total cost per kg of CO 2 capture in Nepal will be about $0.086. A 30% lower electricity cost would lower the capture cost to $0.063/kg CO 2. The availability of cheap hydropower electricity (lower than $0.01/kWh) makes CO 2 capture based urea manufacturing process to be a viable alternative for Nepal. We hope this economic evaluation data will serve as the baseline for the policy makers to undertake a more detailed study on the carbon capture and electrolysis based urea manufacturing plant in the country. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]