Citizen science for landslide risk reduction and disaster resilience building in mountain regions
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Geneva
Department Name: Dep. of Earth and Environmental Sciences
Abstract
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Planned Impact
We aim to maximise impact creation through the following strategies:
* tight integration with national and local stakeholders:
Our consortium is designed to maximise links with relevant stakeholders and policy-makers at all levels. As a Nepal-based organisation, Practical Action Nepal has more than a decade of experience working in the Karnali basin working with local communities, NGOs, and government institutes. They long-standing and successful collaboration between Practical Action Nepal and IIASA ensures local buy-in, as well as the goodwill required to ensure attendance to workshops, training, participatory monitoring, and related activities. At a national level, Practical Action, as well as SOHAM and Tribhuvan University give us direct links into several government entities. For instance, Co-PI prof. Nayava of SOHAM is past director of the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, Ministry of Science, Technology & Environment. Lead PI Buytaert has collaborated for several years with SOHAM and Prof. Nayava, ensuring a smooth and productive collaboration.
Our strong local network is evidenced by the number of letters of support from the following partners:
- Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, Ministry of Science, Technology & Environment, Government of Nepal
- Department of Water Induced Disaster Prevention (DWIDP) , Ministry of Irrigation, Government of Nepal
- Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development, Government of Nepal
- Kathmandu Living Lab (a Nepal based SME)
- Snowland Integrated Development Centre (Local NGO)
- Women Peace Society Nepal (Local NGO)
At an international level, our collaboration with UNESCO's Communication and Information Sector (Co-PI Neupane) and Buytaert's existing contacts with the Cross Cutting Thematic Unit for Disaster Risk Reduction at UNESCO (Dr Makarigakis), will enable maximum impact at the international policy level.
* Research on participatory methods, resilience building, and disaster governance
We will not only collaborate closely with relevant actors, but at the same time contribute to the scientific basis of impact-oriented research. Our Work Package 3 focuses on an analysis of knowledge co-generation & risk governance in data-scarce and multi-actor systems. This will include a thorough analysis of social learning, contextualization of decision-making, and the development of participatory methods of knowledge sharing within the Karnali basin. Together with Work Package 4, which deals with the implementation of developed tools for operational disaster risk reduction and resilience building, it will enable a direct and continuous feedback between the natural science activities (work package 1 on hydrometeorology and work package 2 on earth-surface processes) to ensure that the generated knowlege is scientifically sound, practically useful, and policy relevant.
* Capacity development and training
Based on our interactions with relevant stakeholders, we have identified specific training courses, the details of which are given in the Pathways to Impact document. Past experience with similar projects (e.g., Buytaert's ESPA-funded Mountain-EVO project) has also highlighted the value of employing locally-based researchers and enabling research visits to UK and European counterparts. Through consortium member Tribhuvan University, we aim to hire 4 Nepalese researchers (see Justification of Resources). We have allocated resources for research visits for each of these researchers, for Nepal-based investigators, and for relevant project partners (e.g., Amatya of the Nepalese Department of Water Induced Disaster Prevention, whose CV is included).
* tight integration with national and local stakeholders:
Our consortium is designed to maximise links with relevant stakeholders and policy-makers at all levels. As a Nepal-based organisation, Practical Action Nepal has more than a decade of experience working in the Karnali basin working with local communities, NGOs, and government institutes. They long-standing and successful collaboration between Practical Action Nepal and IIASA ensures local buy-in, as well as the goodwill required to ensure attendance to workshops, training, participatory monitoring, and related activities. At a national level, Practical Action, as well as SOHAM and Tribhuvan University give us direct links into several government entities. For instance, Co-PI prof. Nayava of SOHAM is past director of the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, Ministry of Science, Technology & Environment. Lead PI Buytaert has collaborated for several years with SOHAM and Prof. Nayava, ensuring a smooth and productive collaboration.
Our strong local network is evidenced by the number of letters of support from the following partners:
- Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, Ministry of Science, Technology & Environment, Government of Nepal
- Department of Water Induced Disaster Prevention (DWIDP) , Ministry of Irrigation, Government of Nepal
- Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development, Government of Nepal
- Kathmandu Living Lab (a Nepal based SME)
- Snowland Integrated Development Centre (Local NGO)
- Women Peace Society Nepal (Local NGO)
At an international level, our collaboration with UNESCO's Communication and Information Sector (Co-PI Neupane) and Buytaert's existing contacts with the Cross Cutting Thematic Unit for Disaster Risk Reduction at UNESCO (Dr Makarigakis), will enable maximum impact at the international policy level.
* Research on participatory methods, resilience building, and disaster governance
We will not only collaborate closely with relevant actors, but at the same time contribute to the scientific basis of impact-oriented research. Our Work Package 3 focuses on an analysis of knowledge co-generation & risk governance in data-scarce and multi-actor systems. This will include a thorough analysis of social learning, contextualization of decision-making, and the development of participatory methods of knowledge sharing within the Karnali basin. Together with Work Package 4, which deals with the implementation of developed tools for operational disaster risk reduction and resilience building, it will enable a direct and continuous feedback between the natural science activities (work package 1 on hydrometeorology and work package 2 on earth-surface processes) to ensure that the generated knowlege is scientifically sound, practically useful, and policy relevant.
* Capacity development and training
Based on our interactions with relevant stakeholders, we have identified specific training courses, the details of which are given in the Pathways to Impact document. Past experience with similar projects (e.g., Buytaert's ESPA-funded Mountain-EVO project) has also highlighted the value of employing locally-based researchers and enabling research visits to UK and European counterparts. Through consortium member Tribhuvan University, we aim to hire 4 Nepalese researchers (see Justification of Resources). We have allocated resources for research visits for each of these researchers, for Nepal-based investigators, and for relevant project partners (e.g., Amatya of the Nepalese Department of Water Induced Disaster Prevention, whose CV is included).
People |
ORCID iD |
| Markus Stoffel (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Paul J
(2017)
Citizen science for hydrological risk reduction and resilience building
in WIREs Water
Muñoz-Torrero Manchado A
(2021)
Three decades of landslide activity in western Nepal: New insights into trends and climate drivers
Alberto Muñoz-Torrero Manchado
(2019)
GIS-based Landslide Susceptibility Modelling in Far-Western Nepal
| Description | In recent decades, landslide disasters in the Himalayas, as in other mountain regions, are widely reported to have increased. While some studies have suggested a link to increasing heavy rainfall under a warmer climate, others point to anthropogenic influences on slope stability, and increasing exposure of people and assets located in harm's way. A lack of sufficiently high resolution regional landslide inventories, both spatially and temporally, has prevented any robust consensus. Focusing on Far-Western Nepal, we have drawd on remote sensing techniques to create a regional inventory of 26350 single landslide events, of which 8778 date for the period 1992-2018. These events serve as a basis for the analyses of landslide frequency relationships and trends in relation to precipitation and temperature datasets. Our results show a strong correlation between the annual number of shallow landslides and the accumulated monsoon precipitation. Furthermore, warm and dry monsoons followed by especially rainy monsoons produce the highest incidence of shallow landslides. However, we find strong spatial variability in the strength of these relationships, which is linked to recent demographic development in the region. This highlights the role of anthropogenic drivers, and in particular road cutting and deforestation, in amplifying the seasonal monsoon influence on slope stability. In parallel the absence of any long-term trends in landslide activity, despite widely reported increase in landslide disasters, points strongly to increasing exposure of people and infrastructure as the main driver of landslide disasters in this region of Nepal, and no climate change signal is evident. |
| Exploitation Route | Our findings will be expanded and integrated with the outcomes from the other project work packages as a basis for better preparing communities to prepare and respond to landslide disasters in the Karnali basin. Community engagement and other stakeholder activities are planned throughout the remaining duration of the project, and will the key mechanism through which our results feed into local on-ground action. This is strongly facilitated though the local project partners. At the academic level, one further publicatoin is under review, and international conferences will be attended during 2021. |
| Sectors | Environment |
| Description | Results from the landslide hazard modelling have been used to create hazard maps for communities in Western Nepal. These hazard maps are translated into local language and serve as a basis for disaster risk management. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2020 |
| Sector | Education,Environment |
| Impact Types | Societal |
| Title | Landslide Inventory for Karnali Basin, 2000 - 2017. |
| Description | A comprehensive inventory of ca. 25,000 landslides has been generated for the Karnali Basin - the project study region. Each landslide is dated to the preceding monsoon season and standard geomorphological attributes have been calculated. For the himalayan region, we believe this database will provide an unprecedented empirical basis for basin-scale landslide susceptibility modelling. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Impacts will be generated over coming 12 months, as inventory will now serve as important basis for understanding past landslide activity in the region, and for susceptibility modelling. |
| Description | Landslide mapping collaboration with Tribhuvan University |
| Organisation | Tribhuvan University of Nepal |
| Country | Nepal |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | University of Geneva have undertaken extensive landslide mapping for the study region based on high resolution satellite imagery. This data compliments the field-based mapping being undertaken by Tribhuvan University. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Colleagues at Tribhuvan University are undertaking field-based landslide and geological mapping, which will be used to validate and improve the landslide susceptibility mapping being undertaken by University of Geneva. |
| Impact | In preparation. |
| Start Year | 2017 |