Assessing the characteristics of extreme floods in Nepal

This study examines the characteristics (magnitudes, trends, and frequency of occurrences) of extreme floods in Nepal, a country that is at significant risk from floods. Daily discharge data from 1980 to 2015 of three gauging stations (Chisapani of Karnali Basin, Devghat of Narayani Basin, and Chatara of Koshi Basin) were used to assess the largest 1 % of flows, the annual top five high flows, and floods of different return periods (2-, 5-, 10-, 20-, and 100-year). In addition, temporal trend analysis of the flood peaks was carried out using the Mann–Kendall test and Sen's slope estimates. Results show that the magnitudes of the largest 1 % flows range from 6310 to 17 900, from 6967 to 12 100, and from 6080 to 9610 m3 s−1 at Chisapani, Devghat, and Chatara, respectively. The monsoon, especially from mid-June to early September, consistently witnesses over 90 % of 1 % extreme flows, with August registering more than 51 % of these occurrences. July and August combine for 81 % of the top five flow events, predominantly in August. Despite insignificant flow changes at a 95 % confidence level, extreme floods (2-, 5-, 10-, 20-, and 100-year return periods) are concentrated heavily in July and August, with August's second fortnight recording the most flood events. This assessment emphasizes July and August as critical months for extreme floods, aiding Nepalese authorities in planning dynamic resource allocation, disaster response, and effective flood management.</p

Nasal Parameters and Facial Index in Medical Undergraduates: A Cross Sectional Study

Introduction: Face has priority in identification of an individual. Nose occupying the middle of face is animportant sense organ that helps in respiration. Nose and face can be classified into different types accordingto nasal index and facial index. The aim of this study was to analyze nose and face type and find out itsdominance in different sex of Nepalese and Indian population. Methods: This was a quantitative observationalstudy conducted on 156 medical students using simple sampling method. Data were collected then nasalindex and facial index were calculated. Descriptive statistical data i.e. mean, standard deviation, togetherwith the independent-samples t-test results for anthropometric variables of nasal and facial parameters insex and Nationality (Nepalese and Indian) were analyzed. Results: All the measurement values were morein males compared to females, but the sexual dimorphism in nasal index (male 76.25 ± 7.75, female 75.70± 8.05) and facial index (male 85.77 ± 8.1, female 82.97 ± 7.63) is not statistically significant. Chi-squaretest revealed significant difference in face type among Nepalese and Indian population. Mesorrhine wasthe most common type of nose in both the population. Nepalese had commonly euryprosopic type of facewhile Indians had hypereuryprosopic type of face. Conclusion: Sexual dimorphism was not significant inboth nasal and facial parameters while type of face was helpful in differentiation of Nepalese and Indianpopulation

Contested governance of drinking water provisioning services in Nepal’s transboundary river basins

Governance and management of ecosystem services involve a diversity of institutional mechanisms and policy processes from voluntary to regulatory and collaborative approaches. The governance structures and policy processes are often contested, particularly when stakeholder concerns are insufficiently addressed, particularly of those who are most affected by policy decisions. This research examines how collaborative governance enables the ecosystem services approach to source water protection, thereby addressing contested governance problems and policy processes in transboundary river basins in central Nepal. The data were collected using key informant interviews, policy workshops, policy document review, and direct observation. Research results suggest that the state established collaborative governance institutions to improve already adversarial situations rather than in the co-management of water provisioning and other ecosystem services. We conclude that collaborative governance should focus on empowering vulnerable communities to speak for themselves and for the natural environment, particularly to maintain the sustainable flow of multiple ecosystem services for current and future generations

Utilization of coffee by-products for the production of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages and their physiochemical and sensory characteristics

Coffee pulp is the first byproduct of coffee processing. It contains contaminants due to its composition and production volume. This study evaluates coffee by-products wine from fresh coffee pulp, used as a substrate, along with cascara tea from dried coffee pulp. About 40&nbsp;% of pulp was obtained during the wet processing of coffee. The pulp was dried directly in the sun for 3–4&nbsp;days until the moisture content of the cascara drink was below 8&nbsp;%. Similarly, for the alcoholic beverage (wine), the must was processed to the TSS (24°Brix), and the fermentation process was carried out for up to 10–12&nbsp;days until the TSS was down to 10°Brix. After the fermentation was completed, the fermented wine was kept for secondary fermentation where it undergoes aging or clarification. The clarified wine was then filled into sterilized glass bottles for further use. The chemical composition of coffee pulp (moisture, ash, crude protein, acidity, fat, crude fiber, caffeine, tannin, reducing sugar, TSS, and flavonoids) was analyzed. Both beverages were also subjected to sensory analysis and chemical analysis Caffeine, tannin, pH, and acidity of the non-alcoholic beverage were 220&nbsp;mg/L, 45.7 mg/L, 4.16 and 1.24&nbsp;%, respectively. Alcohol, methanol, ester, aldehyde, pH, TSS, acidity, caffeine, tannin, and flavonoid were 10.58&nbsp;ABV&nbsp;%, 295&nbsp;mg/L, 75.26&nbsp;ppm, 10.12&nbsp;ppm, 3.2, 10°Brix, 0.52&nbsp;%, 28.96&nbsp;ppm, 280&nbsp;mg/L and 405&nbsp;mg/g, respectively. The alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages made from coffee pulp were superior in terms of sensory attributes. Therefore, it is possible to develop both beverages from coffee pulp and maximum utilization of waste coffee pul

The perfect storm: Disruptions to institutional delivery care arising from the COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has led to system-wide disruption of health services globally. We assessed the effect of the pandemic on the disruption of institutional delivery care in Nepal. Methods We conducted a prospective cohort study among 52356 women in nine hospitals to assess the disruption of institutional delivery care during the pandemic (comparing March to August in 2019 with the same months in 2020). We also conducted a nested follow up cohort study with 2022 women during the pandemic to assess their provision and experience of respectful care. We used linear regression models to assess the association between provision and experience of care with volume of hospital births and women’s residence in a COVID-19 hotspot area. Results The mean institutional births during the pandemic across the nine hospitals was 24563, an average decrease of 11.6% (P<0.0001) in comparison to the same time-period in 2019. The institutional birth in high-medium volume hospitals declined on average by 20.8% (P<0.0001) during the pandemic, whereas in low-volume hospital institutional birth increased on average by 7.9% (P=0.001). Maternity services halted for a mean of 4.3 days during the pandemic and there was a redeployment staff to COVID-19 dedicated care. Respectful provision of care was better in hospitals with low-volume birth (β=0.446, P<0.0001) in comparison to high-medium-volume hospitals. There was a positive association between women’s residence in a COVID-19 hotspot area and respectful experience of care (β=0.076, P=0.001). Conclusions The COVID-19 pandemic has had differential effects on maternity services with changes varying by the volume of births per hospital with smaller volume facilities doing better. More research is needed to investigate the effects of the pandemic on where women give birth and their provision and experience of respectful maternity care to inform a “building-back-better” approach in post-pandemic period

Adaptive transition for transformations to sustainability in developing countries

Adaptation and transition are two prominent sustainability science concepts. The former includes one facet of resilience, the capacity of socio-ecological systems to continually change and adapt within their critical thresholds with some exceptional transformability beyond thresholds. The latter concept entails niche experimentation of low-carbon systems and how niche-internal actors influence transformational changes, so-called sustainability transitions, and are influenced by incumbent socio-technical regime. Critics argue that neither adaptation literature nor transition literature sufficiently informs adaptive transition pathways that need to be responsive to already low-carbon subsistence production systems in many developing countries. Recognizing this gap, this paper, albeit in a modest way, develops a framework of adaptive transition integrating socio-ecological systems approaches to adaptation to change referred to as adaptive management, and socio-technical systems approaches to management of change referred to as transition management

Rethinking collaborative governance: contested legitimacy of the Melamchi inter-basin water transfer for municipal use in Nepal

Rapidly growing cities are constantly thirsty for water. The most common approach to meet growing demands is to extract water from rural areas. Whilst rural people and the environment bear the major risks of water extraction, urban municipal service providers and affluent urban consumers, for the most part, benefit from it, where the raw water is processed in treatment plants to generate added value in the form of clean and safe water. Although various governance approaches, from central economic planning to market mechanisms, are touted as effective mechanisms to govern natural resources, research evidence is equivocal on how the state and non-state stakeholders perceive the legitimacy of high modern water transfer. This research employs the contested legitimacy lens to generate nuances in the neoliberal cooption of consensus-based collaborative governance within the context of the Melamchi River diversion, which is Nepal’s largest inter-basin rural-to-urban water transfer for municipal use in the Kathmandu valley, the national capital region with over 3 million population. The research findings revealed that the liberal idea of justice as fairness in water transfer fails to appreciate the contested production of legitimacy in planning and implementation. This research concludes that the dominant narrative of industrialisation and economic growth leading to water crises in urban areas does not sufficiently legitimate the state-led decision to transfer water and other resources from already vulnerable rural areas. The legitimacy of inter-basin water transfer does not come from hierarchical decisions and market mechanisms alone but more importantly from social solidarity movements. The latter especially provides novel sources of legitimacy moving away from the consensus approach to water resource planning and implementation

Assessing the past and adapting to future floods: a hydro-social analysis

Floods are extreme events affecting millions of people worldwide and causing loss worth billions. The magnitude and frequency of floods are likely to increase with altered climate, and developing countries tend to suffer the most because of low resilience and adaptive capacity. This research aimed to analyze existing and preferred future flood adaptation strategies in a flood-prone West Rapti River (WRR) Basin of Nepal, using hydrological analysis and flood modelling, and a social survey of 240 households (HHs) and several focus group discussions (FGDs). The specific objectives were to (1) understand the rainfall-flood behaviour of the basin in a simplistic way, (2) carry out flood modelling to generate inundation maps for informing the local people, and (3) identify flood adaptation strategies based on people’s perception. Flood inundation maps are generated for four scenarios based on return periods: scenario I (2 years), scenario II (20 years), scenario III (50 years), and scenario IV (100 years). Results show that the southern parts of three rural municipalities (Duduwa, Narainapur, and Rapti Sonari) get inundated almost every year irrespective of the flood magnitude. This information was presented to local communities before administering the HH survey and FGDs so that they could make informed decisions. During the survey, the preference of people’s adaptation strategies for the four flood scenarios was explored and prioritized. Our findings suggest that peoples’ thoughts and preferences for adaptation strategies changed with exposure to flood magnitudes. For example, “bamboo mesh with sand filled bags”—simplest and least expensive adaptation strategy—was preferred for a less severe flood while a complex and expensive technique “reservoir/flood regulating structures” was preferred for a devastating flood scenario. Thus, this study has highlighted firstly, the importance of inundation maps to understand and inform the local people about floods and their impacts; and secondly, the value of information to the people enabling them to make informed decisions. The novelty of this empirical study lies in a multi-disciplinary assessment framework which integrates scientific information, stakeholder knowledge, and local people’s perceptions of flood risks and adaptation strategies for the future. Such an approach of hydro-social analysis has the potential for replication in flood-prone regions globally, with similar bio-physical and socio-economic conditions

Application of machine learning to assess people's perception of household energy in the developing world: A case of Nepal

Research on social aspects of energy and those applying machine learning (ML) is limited compared to the ‘hard’ disciplines such as science and engineering. We aim to contribute to this niche through this multidisciplinary study integrating energy, social science and ML. Specifically, we aim: (i) to compare the applicability of different ML models in household (HH) energy; and (ii) to explain people's perception of HH energy using the most appropriate model. We carried out cross-sectional survey of 323 HHs in a developing country (Nepal) and extracted 14 predictor variables and one response variable. We tested the performance of seven ML models: K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP), Extra Trees Classifier (ETC), Random Forest (RF), Ridge Classifier (RC), Multinomial Regression–Logit (MR-L) and Probit (MR-P) in classifying people's responses. The models were evaluated against six metrics (confusion matrix, precision, f1 score, recall, balanced accuracy and overall accuracy). In this study, ETC outperformed all other models demonstrating a balanced accuracy of 0.79, 0.95 and 0.68 respectively for the Agree, Neutral and Disagree response categories. Results showed that, compared to conventional statistical models, data driven ML models are better in classifying people's perceptions. It was seen that the majority of the surveyed people from rural (68%) and semi-urban areas (67%) tend to resist energy changes due to economic constraints and lack of awareness. Interestingly, most (73%) of the urban residents are open to changes, but still resort to fuel-stacking because of distrust in the state. These grass-root level responses have strong policy implications

Rethinking collaborative governance to enhance legitimacy co-production: a multipurpose rural-urban water transfer in Nepal

This study examines the Sundarjal Water Supply System in Nepal, which involves over 100 years of experience on a multipurpose water supply project. Research findings suggest that the liberal idea of justice as fairness in the distribution of risks and benefits fails to appreciate the political nature of state interventions to transfer rural water for urban municipal use. The research rejects the neoliberal idea of procedural justice as creating non-argumentative spaces for decision making, such as majority vote and Indigenous quota, common in collaborative governance in favour of the political ecological approach to developing argumentative spaces to facilitate contested co-production of legitimacy