4 research outputs found
Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene of Nepal: Status, Challenges, and Opportunities
Access to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) has been
a challenge
to south Asia’s rapidly growing and climate change-sensitive
region. Nepal, a water-abundant country, faces obstacles to fulfilling
the highly prioritized WASH Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6).
This review offers details about Nepal’s WASH status from 2000
to 2020 with regard to the challenges Nepal had in delivering reliable
WASH services to the people, as well as opportunities for a sustainable
way forward, and provides insights that can be applied to other developing
countries. From analysis of national-level assessments, estimates
point toward healthy progress in extending WASH access to the population.
However, large inequalities persist at the subnational level between
urban and rural residents, between poor and rich residents, and between
genders. Many local constraints such as a lack of long-term infrastructural
capacity to provide and maintain WASH services, financial issues,
and institutional and policy incompatibilities are some of the key
factors that technical considerations and private sector involvement
could address. We also propose roles for Nepal’s central, provincial,
and local governments for identification and adaptation to the undeniable
risks of climate change. Furthermore, there is a need to capitalize
on the potential opportunities for developing a much-needed robust
and climate-resilient WASH sector in Nepal, safeguarding the rights
of future generations to safe and clean water
The bioherbicidal potential of isolated fungi cultivated in microalgal biomass
This study evaluated the bioherbicidal potential of wild fungi grown on microalgal biomass from the digestate treatment of biogas production. Four fungal isolates were used and the extracts were evaluated for the activity of different enzymes and characterized by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry. The bioherbicidal activity was assessed by application on Cucumis sativus, and the leaf damage was visually estimated. The microorganisms showed potential as agents producing an enzyme pool. The obtained fungal extracts presented different organic compounds, most acids, and when applied to Cucumis sativus, showed high levels of leaf damage (80-100 +/- 3.00%, deviation relative to the observed average damage). Therefore, the microbial strains are potential biological control agents of weeds, which, together with the microalgae biomass, offer the appropriate conditions to obtain an enzyme pool of biotechnological relevance and with favorable characteristics to be explored as bioherbicides, addressing aspects within the environmental sustainability.[GRAPHICS