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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]

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]

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]

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]