Citizen science for landslide risk reduction and disaster resilience building in mountain regions
Lead Research Organisation:
Imperial College London
Department Name: Civil & Environmental Engineering
Abstract
Mountains are hotspot of natural disasters, in particular those related to landslides. At the same time, scientific understanding about the natural processes that cause these disasters is lagging behind, because of the complexity of the physical environment and the difficulties facing data collection. The impact of these disasters on society is very high, especially because mountain regions often host less developed infrastructure and vulnerable populations. As a result, there is an urgent need to improve our understanding about how natural disasters in mountain regions occur, how they can be mitigated, and how people at risk can be made more resilient.
This proposal will leverage recent technological and conceptual breakthroughs in environmental data collection, processing and communication to leapfrog resilience building in data-scarce and poor mountain communities in South Asia. In particular, we identify three convergent evolutions that hold great promise. First, technological developments in sensor networks and data management allow for participatory and grass-roots data collection and citizen science. Second, web- and cloud based ICT makes it possible to build more powerful analysis and prediction systems, assimilating heterogeneous data sources and tracking uncertainties. Lastly, this enables a more tailored and targeted flow of information for knowledge co-creation and decision-making.
These evolutions are part of a trend towards more bottom-up and participatory approaches to the generation of scientific evidence that supports decision making on environmental processes, which is often referred to as "citizen science". We believe that a citizen science approach is particularly promising in remote mountain environments, because improving resilience and humanitarian response in these regions are inherently polycentric activities: a wide range of actors is involved in generating relevant information and scientific evidence, in decision-making and policy building, and in implementing actions both during a hazard and before and after. It is therefore paramount to strengthen the flow of information between these centres of activity, to make best use of existing knowledge, to identify the major knowledge gaps, and to allocate resources to eliminate these gaps.
We will use the Karnali basin in Western Nepal as a pilot study. The Karnali basin is a remote and understudied basin that suffers from a complex interplay of natural hazards, including hydrologically-induced landslides and cascading hazards such as flooding. Over the last years, these hazards have caused serious damage to local infrastructure (e.g., roads, irrigation canals, houses, bridges) and affected livelihoods (e.g., 34760 families in the August 2014 floods).
Using cost-effective sensor technologies, we will implement grass-roots monitoring of precipitation, river flow, soil moisture, and geomorphology. We will use those data to analyse meteorological extremes, and their impact on spatiotemporal patterns of landslide risk. By merging these data will other data sources such as satellite imagery, we aim to generate landslide risk maps at unprecedented resolution.
At the same time, our participatory citizen science approach will enable us to design and implement a framework for bottom-up and polycentric community disaster resilience, based upon knowledge co-generation and sharing.
Lastly, we will build upon the existing community-based flood early warning system implemented by our partner Practical Action Nepal, to create a comprehensive multi-hazard early warning system and knowledge exchange platform. For this, we will leverage recent developments in open-standards based, decentralized data processing and knowledge dissemination, such as mobile phones and web-interfaces.
This proposal will leverage recent technological and conceptual breakthroughs in environmental data collection, processing and communication to leapfrog resilience building in data-scarce and poor mountain communities in South Asia. In particular, we identify three convergent evolutions that hold great promise. First, technological developments in sensor networks and data management allow for participatory and grass-roots data collection and citizen science. Second, web- and cloud based ICT makes it possible to build more powerful analysis and prediction systems, assimilating heterogeneous data sources and tracking uncertainties. Lastly, this enables a more tailored and targeted flow of information for knowledge co-creation and decision-making.
These evolutions are part of a trend towards more bottom-up and participatory approaches to the generation of scientific evidence that supports decision making on environmental processes, which is often referred to as "citizen science". We believe that a citizen science approach is particularly promising in remote mountain environments, because improving resilience and humanitarian response in these regions are inherently polycentric activities: a wide range of actors is involved in generating relevant information and scientific evidence, in decision-making and policy building, and in implementing actions both during a hazard and before and after. It is therefore paramount to strengthen the flow of information between these centres of activity, to make best use of existing knowledge, to identify the major knowledge gaps, and to allocate resources to eliminate these gaps.
We will use the Karnali basin in Western Nepal as a pilot study. The Karnali basin is a remote and understudied basin that suffers from a complex interplay of natural hazards, including hydrologically-induced landslides and cascading hazards such as flooding. Over the last years, these hazards have caused serious damage to local infrastructure (e.g., roads, irrigation canals, houses, bridges) and affected livelihoods (e.g., 34760 families in the August 2014 floods).
Using cost-effective sensor technologies, we will implement grass-roots monitoring of precipitation, river flow, soil moisture, and geomorphology. We will use those data to analyse meteorological extremes, and their impact on spatiotemporal patterns of landslide risk. By merging these data will other data sources such as satellite imagery, we aim to generate landslide risk maps at unprecedented resolution.
At the same time, our participatory citizen science approach will enable us to design and implement a framework for bottom-up and polycentric community disaster resilience, based upon knowledge co-generation and sharing.
Lastly, we will build upon the existing community-based flood early warning system implemented by our partner Practical Action Nepal, to create a comprehensive multi-hazard early warning system and knowledge exchange platform. For this, we will leverage recent developments in open-standards based, decentralized data processing and knowledge dissemination, such as mobile phones and web-interfaces.
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. Nayaval, 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 (DHM), 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. Nayaval, 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 (DHM), 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).
Publications
Budimir M
(2020)
Communicating complex forecasts: an analysis of the approach in Nepal's flood early warning system
in Geoscience Communication
Budimir M
(2019)
Communicating Complex Forecasts for Enhanced Early Warning in Nepal
Cieslik K
(2019)
Building Resilience to Chronic Landslide Hazard Through Citizen Science
in Frontiers in Earth Science
Dewulf A
(2019)
The power to define resilience in social-hydrological systems: Toward a power-sensitive resilience framework
in WIREs Water
Docherty J
(2020)
A framework for understanding water-related multi-hazards in a sustainable development context
in Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment
Kreibich H
(2022)
The challenge of unprecedented floods and droughts in risk management.
in Nature
LIU W
(2019)
OPERATIONALIZING POLYCENTRICITY FOR LANDSCAPE RESILIENCE
in Landscape Architecture Frontiers
Mao F
(2018)
Water sensor network applications: T ime to move beyond the technical?
in Hydrological Processes
Mao F
(2020)
Moving beyond the Technology: A Socio-technical Roadmap for Low-Cost Water Sensor Network Applications
in Environmental Science & Technology
Mao F
(2019)
Low-Cost Environmental Sensor Networks: Recent Advances and Future Directions
in Frontiers in Earth Science
Martin J
(2021)
Living with Landslides: Perceptions of Risk and Resilience in Far West Nepal
in IDRiM Journal
Mechler R
(2018)
Loss and Damage from Climate Change
Muñoz-Torrero Manchado A
(2021)
Three decades of landslide activity in western Nepal: new insights into trends and climate drivers
in Landslides
Muñoz-Torrero Manchado A
(2021)
Three decades of landslide activity in western Nepal: New insights into trends and climate drivers
Muñoz-Torrero Manchado A
(2022)
Deforestation controls landslide susceptibility in Far-Western Nepal
in CATENA
Nayava J
(2022)
Changing precipitation patterns in far-western Nepal in relation to landslides in Bajhang and Bajura districts
in Geographical Journal of Nepal
Pandeya B
(2020)
Mitigating flood risk using low-cost sensors and citizen science: A proof-of-concept study from western Nepal
in Journal of Flood Risk Management
Paul J
(2019)
Editorial: Citizen Science: Reducing Risk and Building Resilience to Natural Hazards
in Frontiers in Earth Science
Paul J
(2017)
Citizen science for hydrological risk reduction and resilience building
in WIREs Water
Paul J
(2021)
Mobile phone technologies for disaster risk reduction
in Climate Risk Management
Paul J
(2020)
A Technical Evaluation of Lidar-Based Measurement of River Water Levels
in Water Resources Research
Paul J
(2020)
Applying Citizen Science for Sustainable Development: Rainfall Monitoring in Western Nepal
in Frontiers in Water
Paul J
(2018)
Advanced Tools for Integrated Water Resources Management
Twomlow A
(2022)
A user-centred design framework for disaster risk visualisation
in International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction
Uprety M
(2019)
Improving water resources management using participatory monitoring in a remote mountainous region of Nepal
in Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies
Vij S
(2020)
Evolving disaster governance paradigms in Nepal
in International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction
Zogheib C
(2021)
A methodology to downscale water demand data with application to the Andean region (Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile)
in Hydrological Sciences Journal
Zogheib C
(2018)
Exploring a water data, evidence, and governance theory
in Water Security
Description | - New technologies, especially low-cost, robust sensors, are very useful to support local data collection as part of community-based flood early warning - Citizen science data are often of high quality and can support scientific enquiry, for example on rainfall patterns. - Citizen science is a powerful tool to support primary and secondary school education |
Exploitation Route | The project has developed several toolboxes that are actively used by others, including: - blueprints for open hardware low-cost water level sensor - Methodologies for citizen science-based precipitation measurements - Downscaling of extreme rainfall events for flood forecasting purposes |
Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) Environment Government Democracy and Justice |
URL | http://paramo.cc.ic.ac.uk/landslide/ |
Description | The following may impacts have been created: i) Landslide maps (both hazard and vulnerability) are now used by several local village development committees in planning future agricultural development and settlement; ii) >100 secondary school students have been instructed about Monsoon rainfall and rainfall data collection, using locally installed tipping-bucket rain gauges as exemplar data sources; iii) Tipping-bucket rain gauges have in some cases replaced existing, less sophisticated, government-network gauges iv) Smartphone-based (OpenStreetMap) mapping of land lost due to landslides, rockfall, rotational slumps and similar processes, has been communicated to farmers and used to predict future patterns of land loss, and to mitigate against this loss; v) All precipitation and river level/discharge data will be shared with Nepalese Department of Hydrology and Meteorology to improve their flood forecasting practices; vi) Multiple stakeholder workshops have brought together and initiated discussion amongst disparate stakeholders (e.g. local and federal politicians; farmers; teachers; police) to better coordinate hazard response and mitigation, and to raise general level of immediate environmental awareness; vii) New technology (e.g. lidar water level sensors) has been successfully trialled in very remote and inaccessible locations; local stakeholders have been trained in data measurement, installation, and maintenance, i.e. they have taken ownership of locally deployed sensors. |
First Year Of Impact | 2020 |
Sector | Education,Environment |
Impact Types | Societal Policy & public services |
Description | Meeting with Department of Soil Conservation and Watershed Management |
Geographic Reach | Asia |
Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
Title | Citizen Science for Collaborative Mapping |
Description | A collaborative mapping approach was used to enable citizen scientists to use ground-level knowledge in representing a community at varying spatial scales through mapping. This process involved a wide range of stakeholders, including people from diverse backgrounds, such as students, government officials from municipal and ward offices, IT officers from the respective municipalities, representatives from Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), and those from the Nepal Police and the Nepal Army, to co-produce knowledge more effectively and efficiently. |
Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
Year Produced | 2020 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | Using open data platforms for collecting and analyzing location-based data has a mutual benefit for researchers and communities. Such data could be vital in understanding the local landscape, environmental risk, and distribution of resources. Furthermore, they enable both researchers and local people to transfer technical knowledge, collect location-specific data, and use them for better decision-making. |
Title | Citizen Science in Schools in a sustainable development context |
Description | We tested the framework by means of a case study at two secondary schools in Nepal, in order to interrogate which elements could successfully translate from theory to practice, and to identify major challenges requiring further refinement. Co-designing a teaching programme is an effective means of both complementing local curricula and ensuring continued buy-in of local stakeholders (i.e., teachers). Student engagement depends on the local relevance of teaching materials, with more holistic or global concepts, such as climate change of lesser importance. Our activity focused on rainfall, including student-led data collection. These rainfall data provide a very good fit to co-located rain gauge data, with an average difference on weekly readings of 11.8%, reducing to 8.3% when averaged over all student readings. |
Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
Year Produced | 2020 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | Our findings and refined framework are generalizable to other student populations, and can be used to guide the application of citizen science in a sustainable development context elsewhere. |
Title | Documentation for the Riverlabs suite of sensors |
Description | The github repository gives an overview on operating the Riverlabs environmental loggers, how to program them, install them, and storing and retrieving data |
Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | The manual is publicly accessible and allows for replication of the use of the sensors in this project and beyond. |
URL | https://ichydro.github.io/Riverlabs/index.html |
Title | Integrated monitoring methods for flood and landslide risk assessment and mitigation |
Description | Flood and landslide risk assessment and mitigation in the Karnali river basin region in Far Western Nepal was evaluated within a test of integrated monitoring methods (comprising ERT, UAV-photogrammetry, D-GPS/geodesy, microseismics, soil water saturation, rainfall, and other) on a regional as well as local scale at two selected sites at Bajura and Sunkoda. It was possible to derive extended information about movements in a ROI covering 120 km by 120 km. |
Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
Year Produced | 2020 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | The study represents the first of this kind in the region and proves the ability of INSAR techniques for retrieving critical information about mass movements affecting local communities in the Karnali river basin as an example of a developing region. |
Title | Landslide Inventory and Susceptibility Maps - Seti Basin |
Description | General landslide susceptibility analysis for the 6400Km2 of the Seti-Basin. The lack of ground truth landslide data for the area has been solve by the use of GIS and remote-sensing techniques, which have served for the creation of an historical landslide inventory of 26350 single landslide events.Besides, changes in time-series of multispectral imagery has been used for automated landslide identification in these complex terrains, but also to identify dates of possible activity in the landslides inventoried, resulting in 8778 landslides annaually dated for the period 1992-2018. The use of this multi-temporal landslide inventory together with rainfall datasets of ERA5 has been employed to identify the more possible rainfall threshold mechanism and to calculate spatial-temporal probabilities of occurrence for the creation of landslide hazard maps and with that calculate possible expected loses in terms of population fatalities and damaged roads, crops, and buildings, in the municipalities of the Bajura district that are within the study area. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | Data has been integrated into the BIPAD portal in Nepal. BIPAD is a national portal embedded with independent platforms for 753 local government, 7 provincial governments and federal government for data collection, input and sharing with adequate linkage for data enrichment and verification. This platform has six modules that have the potential to enhance early warning, preparedness, strengthen disaster communication, response and decision-making. |
URL | https://bipaddev.yilab.org.np/risk-info/#/hazard |
Title | Arduino routines for environmental sensing and logging |
Description | A software library to build open source environmental loggers using the Arduino platform |
Type Of Technology | Software |
Year Produced | 2020 |
Open Source License? | Yes |
Impact | Supporting the development and implementation of low-cost open source water level loggers for flood early warning. |
URL | https://github.com/ICHydro/Riverlabs |
Title | LIDAR Sensor (River level/ distance sensor) |
Description | The developed sensor uses near infrared (NIR) laser pulses to derive distance with an effective range of approximately 30 m. This is a novel application for LiDAR lasers, which are not typically used in such small, static sensors to measure distance to water. The wavelength of the light (905 nm) has not been used before for this purpose, and the water surface has surprisingly good reflectivity to it. The Arduino-based datalogging system is novel, allowing, for example, measurement frequencies to be varied in the field. |
Type Of Technology | Systems, Materials & Instrumental Engineering |
Year Produced | 2017 |
Impact | A key impact is baseline data collection for new flood early-warning systems via a wireless link, for real-time data display in nearby villages on LED boards, as well as the sounding of an alarm when critical threshold(s) are reached. The next steps are development of solar power and realtime data transmission. |
Title | Microseismic stations and inSAR corner reflector |
Description | Adapted seismic station with real time data stream via vpn, solar power driven, GPS-time synchronization and corner reflector with adaptable mounting |
Type Of Technology | Detection Devices |
Year Produced | 2019 |
Impact | Monitoring and localization of landslide activity |
Title | Production of suite of interactive landslide maps |
Description | WP2/Simon Allen et al (Geneva University): Production of a suite of landslide maps for both study areas - in terms of risk and vulnerability. These are available in the form of an online, real-time-updated database. Initial hazard maps exploit and combine topographical indices e.g. slope, land use, aspect, geology. Vulnerability maps integrate hazard maps with ward-level social metrics, collected by the Landslide EVO team (Practical Action Nepal: WP4) such as access to sanitation, dependency ratio, access to water, local transport and education. |
Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
Year Produced | 2019 |
Impact | These maps have been introduced via an app and OpenStreetMap to communities local to landslides at both study sites (Bajura and Bahjang districts, western Nepal) |
Title | Real-time lidar prototype development |
Description | Sensor development: Imperial (Wouter Buytaert/Jonathan Paul) have finalised the design of real-time and non-real-time lidar water level systems, and have automated the production of bespoke printed circuit boards. Such lidar prototypes are flexible and can include the option for a solar charger. We have also conducted a series of laboratory tests to interrogate the response of the setup to varying environmental conditions (e.g. distance, inclination, water turbidity, water surface rugosity, ambient temperature). |
Type Of Technology | Systems, Materials & Instrumental Engineering |
Year Produced | 2019 |
Impact | Installation of six lidar prototypes across two study sites in Nepal; data for 2019 Monsoon season retrieved in November 2019 is currently being analysed |
Title | Routines for open source telemetry with Arduino |
Description | An Arduino software library to implement telemetry routines with the XBee Cellular Modem |
Type Of Technology | Software |
Year Produced | 2020 |
Open Source License? | Yes |
Impact | This is part of a toolbox to enable low-cost open hardware environmental sensing and logging |
URL | https://github.com/ICHydro/xbee-arduino |
Title | Ultrasound sensor (river level/distance sensor) |
Description | Uses ultrasonic pulses to derive distance with an effective range 5-7 m. The developed equipment is low-cost (compared to industry-manufactured ultrasonic sensors) and originally used in the automotive industry; the Arduino platform allows alterations to measurement frequency, for example, to be made easily in the field. |
Type Of Technology | Systems, Materials & Instrumental Engineering |
Year Produced | 2017 |
Impact | The sensors have been Installed in Nepal, Tanzania, Somalia and South America. Training has been provided to the local communities in their use, and in Tanzania they will eventually be taken over by Tanzania Water Authority. The sensors provide baseline data to help quantify environmental flows with benefits such as assisting local farmers forumlate annual irrigation schedules, for example. |
Description | Advisory board meetings |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Sharing of the project updates to the advisory board and their suggestion for increasing research impact at the policy and practice. Feedback from the Advisory board members for the sustainability of the project/ interventions. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018,2019 |
Description | Citizen Science activities at Schools - November 2018 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | L-EVO researchers conducted preliminary interaction with students and teachers of Sunkuda Secondary School in Bajhang to familiarize them with Open Street Map (OSM) mapping. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Citizen science in schools intervention - western Nepal - May 2019 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Citizen science in schools (CSIS) initiative - two classes taken in May 2019 (WP1/2) at two secondary schools in Bajura and Bajhang districts; another planned for March 2020 (WP2). Establishment of 'science clubs' at two secondary schools close to both study sites. Instruction in hydrology/landslides, and preparation of data collection activities (rainfall collection in measuring cylinders). Local schoolteachers were closely involved in co-creating lesson plans and teaching material that complements Government of Nepal official science curriculum. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | Consultation meeting with DHM and NDRRMA |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Consultation with the Director General of DHM and the CEO of NDRRMA for co-production of paper |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
Description | Consultation workshop in Bajura and Bajhang District |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Discussion on project objectives and coverage areas, expectation from the participants and communities. This allowed the identification of key priority areas and local government expectation / Identification of possibility of synergies between government's planning and our research activities |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Data retrieval activity with local community members |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Students from two schools, their teachers, and other local observers where shown how to do rainfall data retrieval from gauges installed in the area and trained on its usefulness. Requests were subsequently made for powerpoint presentations and further information for dissemination with larger audiences (Teachers, students and locals) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | Disaster governance and translating scientific knowledge on landslide risk to inform policy and decision makers (webinar) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | The webinar covered the following topics: Socio-economics of Landslide Risk and its perception, Policy perspective, Potential of [Effective] Landslide Early Warning System in Nepal, and Landscape, Land Use and Landslide in Nepal. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Installation of knowledge interactive boards and training |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Knowledge Boards in Rural Schools of Bajhang and Bajura District were installed and teachers trained to use the app associated with them. The boards have uploaded customized data/information/maps generated by the LEVO project (from all WPs and other landslide info) and gives schools orientation on this content, its usage and importance to the relevant stakeholders. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | London outreach, 2018/9 - Imperial and Great Exhibition Road festivals |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Imperial College WP1 members (Buytaert, Paul, Twomlow, Sah) organised and led outreach events for the general public, at the Imperial Festival (April 2018), Great Exhibition Road Festival (June 2019), and a Science Museum Lates event (March 2019) - entitled Lasers, Floods, and Droughts. This centered around demonstrations of our lidar distance sensors, and explanations of our risk reduction efforts in western Nepal |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018,2019 |
Description | Meeting with Red Cross Climate Centre |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
Results and Impact | Discussion with the experts of Climate Centre on the project activities- all WPs, how the activities are creating impact on ground as well as to the other stakeholders. Sharing the monitoring activities (hydro-met, geology), and also on the social survey, participatory mapping. Informed about research into impact. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | Real-time Flood, Landslide Monitoring and Innovations (webinar) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Presented the Application of Remote Sensing and UAVs in Nepal as outcome of the project |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Roads, landslides, and rethinking development |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | FINISH |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://blog.iiasa.ac.at/2021/02/02/roads-landslides-and-rethinking-development/ |
Description | Role of Civil Society Organizations on Earthquake Safety in Complex Emergencies (webinar) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Sharing of project's research outcomes to the wider audience of similar interest |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Stakeholder Meeting at the Inception of the Landslide EVO project, Kathmandu, Nepal |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | The meeting was held for potential beneficiaries of the Landslide EVO project. There were 25-30 attendees from academia, NGOs and local government. The meeting included a discussion of the project outline, potential locations for the research and timeframes. The key outcomes included identification of interested parties and their potential involvement with the work, suggested fieldwork schedule and a list of priorities for immediate action. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | Stakeholder consultation workshops |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Landslide EVO researchers arranged consultation workshops in three different municipalities. The agenda of the meetings included an introduction of Landslide EVO and past activities, an overview of the future planned activities, discussion on municipal plans and programs related to Disaster Risk Reduction and on stakeholder expectations. all the ward heads and related stakeholders are now aware of our project (LEVO). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Stakeholder mapping in western Nepal at two study sites; training in OSM |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | • OpenStreetMap (OSM) mapping and training to the local stakeholders; OSM manuals, and training reports • Field-based Risk and Vulnerability Mapping for the two study sites (Sunkuda and Bajedi) - November 2018 - present • Communication chart for local-level community landslide EWS is being developed by PAC Nepal - Puja Shakya and Binod Parajuli (WP4) • Stakeholder mapping with responsibility matrix of the stakeholders (led by PAC Nepal) • Local stakeholder level training on municipal level DRR plan preparation; sharing of the communication chart and endorsements (May 2018 to present; led by PAC Nepal) • Preparation of the translated landslide risk and vulnerability maps to be shared at the local level |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018,2019,2020 |
Description | Stakeolder workshop on landslides, Kathmandu, 2018 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Multi-stakeholder workshop on challenges of landslide risk reduction and resilience in Western Nepal, Organized by WP3 (Wei Liu, Prakash Khadka et al), with support from Nepal Water Conservation Foundation, 11/2018, Kathmandu |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Towards digital Nepal: Enabling citizen scientists of remote districts to map their location |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | Blog post on team's experience in carrying out citizen science mapping activities. The post was republished or cited on other websites. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://english.onlinekhabar.com/towards-digital-nepal-enabling-citizen-scientists-of-remote-distric... |
Description | Translation of landslide inventory maps and sharing with the Municipalities |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Translation of landslide inventory maps and sharing with municipality in large posters to put on public places. Participants very interested in these kinds of maps and requested for some more maps |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | Virtual Workshop on the use of weather forecast in disaster preparedness at Municipality Level |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | The workshop raised awareness of the stakeholders of Budhiganga Municipality of the availability of the DHM weather forecast and its use and importance in their local level of disaster preparedness activities. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Webinar: Low Cost technologies for Landslide Risk Reduction |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | The webinar discussed and showcased low cost technologies for Landslide Risk Reduction, including the lidar sensors developed at Imperial College as part of the project. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Why do people continue to live near landslides |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | Blog post about the communities living near landslides which the project works with, as well as project information. The post was republished or cited on other websites. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://english.onlinekhabar.com/why-do-people-continue-to-live-near-landslides.html |