The Butwal-Dobhan road section of the Siddhartha Highway is highly hazardous and problematic section due to rock-fall. In this road section, the Siwalik rocks are exposed that contains inter-bedding of hard and soft rocks. The... more
The Butwal-Dobhan road section of the Siddhartha Highway is highly hazardous and problematic section due to rock-fall. In this road section, the Siwalik rocks are exposed that contains inter-bedding of hard and soft rocks. The differential weathering pattern of hard rock sandstone and soft rock mudstone exhibit different properties in the presence of water. Mudstone can easily be softened by water and flow down as slurries when saturated, whereas sandstone cannot easily be softened in water resulting overhanging of sandstone and finally dislodges rock blocks as a rock-fall. The main aims of this study are to investigate and understand the causes of rock-fall, to prepare rock-fall hazard map and ultimately to protect people, properties, man-made structures and to spread public awareness against rock-fall problem. For these set objectives, the study area is divided into twenty-three zones based on segment length along the highway, topography and orientation of discontinuities. Two bas...
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The present study analyses the variations in the ionospheric total electron content (TEC) prior to and during the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake in Nepal (Mw = 7.8) on 25 April 2015, utilising data from the widely distributed Global Positioning... more
The present study analyses the variations in the ionospheric total electron content (TEC) prior to and during the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake in Nepal (Mw = 7.8) on 25 April 2015, utilising data from the widely distributed Global Positioning System (GPS) network. This study aimed to determine the association between ionospheric TEC anomalies and the occurrence of earthquakes. The finding shows that anomalous TEC changes occurred several days to a few hours prior to the major impending events. The results reveal that deviations in vertical total electron content (VTEC) at distant locations from the epicentre are less than those observed at the epicentre, implying that variation in ionospheric VTEC is nearly inversely proportional to the distance of GPS stations from the epicentre. In view of the solar-terrestrial environment, the pre-earthquake ionospheric anomalies could be associated with the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake. The VTEC anomaly was identified when it crosses the upper bound (UB) or...
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West Java is the most risky province to landslide events in Indonesia due to extreme geo-morphological condition, climatic condition and densely populated with immense development activities. This study aims to explore distribution and... more
West Java is the most risky province to landslide events in Indonesia due to extreme geo-morphological condition, climatic condition and densely populated with immense development activities. This study aims to explore distribution and characteristic of landslide in West Java. Geomorphological and archive inventories were prepared for the selected study area. The geomorphological inventory contains information about landslides that occurred before 1994, whereas the archive inventory includes recent landslides (1994 to 2010). Frequency-size statistics has been used to explore characteristics of landslide maps and to understand evolution of landscape in the study area due to slope movement. This study reveals that prepared landslide map includes a substantial fraction of all landslides at all scales (small-medium-large). However, archive inventory was incomplete in size aspect due to the limitation of landslide mapping technique. Geomorphological inventory showed rollover whose positi...
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Climate change is a buzzword in the world. Scientist has approved it as global warming with its projection of undesired and unpredicted frequent extreme events and their vulnerabilities not only at present but also at future. There is an... more
Climate change is a buzzword in the world. Scientist has approved it as global warming with its projection of undesired and unpredicted frequent extreme events and their vulnerabilities not only at present but also at future. There is an assumption of occurrence of adaptive capacity and behavior of farmers in agriculture production activity at some extent to neutralize climate change vulnerabilities of flood and landslides on paddy production. This paper empirically examines the effects of climate change in paddy production and farmer’s adaptive behaviors to neutralize such climatic shocks and events in paddy production by employing CD production function based econometric model. The study employed primary data collected through 642 household surveys. The study finds that climatic shocks and events have huge loss (60%) in paddy production and revenue income in such plot where farmers have not indigenous knowledge and practices. But both small and larger farmers who have adaptive cap...
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Background: Nepal is a Himalayan mountainous country and it is extremely vulnerable to various natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, landslides, windstorms, droughts and other ecological hazards. Every year, the disaster... more
Background: Nepal is a Himalayan mountainous country and it is extremely vulnerable to various natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, landslides, windstorms, droughts and other ecological hazards. Every year, the disaster statistics of Nepal are awful which always motivate and justify the urgent need of disaster risk reduction (DRR) works in Nepal. The World Disaster Reduction Campaign for 2006-2007 (Disaster Risk Reduction begins at school) has started various initiatives worldwide to make school safer from disaster and Nepal has also started to include disaster education in school as its program of mainstreaming the disaster risk reduction in education sector. In this context, few education programs for disaster risk reduction were already initiated in Nepal and few positive results were already documented. However, evaluation of the real ground scenario from independent research is still lacking. Aim: This research aims to explore existing knowledge of school teachers in Nepal about disaster risk reduction. Materials and Methods: Altogether 106 teachers from 19 districts of Nepal were interviewed and various questions related to disaster information, disaster knowledge, readiness, awareness, adaptation, and risk perception were asked to the teachers. The school principal, or the vice-principal or the assistant principal is selected for the interview. Their respond on DRR issues certainly help to accumulate realistic scenarios of DRR among education leaders of Nepal. They were 13% of female and 87% of male participants. Statistical Analysis: Statistical analysis, such as histogram analysis, distribution analysis, bivariate correlations and independent sample t-tests were conducted to examine the relationship between teachers and their knowledge on key DRR issues related dependent variables. Result and Conclusion: Finding of this independent research confirmed that initiatives taken for DRR in education sectors of Nepal is not enough and still teachers are not fully aware of DRR issues. The research also found that teachers are not well informed of elements in disaster risk and related knowledge of DRR. In Nepal, the DRR education must be promoted to communities through the well-groomed school teachers to reduce disaster risk in community and to establish disaster safe society.
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Detailed geological, engineering geological and geotechnical assessment are prerequisites for any design works in underground excavation. Due to complex geology in young Himalayan, it is mandatory. Any misjudgment in support design may... more
Detailed geological, engineering geological and geotechnical assessment are prerequisites for any design works in underground excavation. Due to complex geology in young Himalayan, it is mandatory. Any misjudgment in support design may results huge losses of cost and time of the project. This paper encompasses detailed analysis carried out for examining the rock mass properties for optimum support along a pressurized headrace tunnel of Upper Balephi “A” Hydroelectric Project, Nepal. Empirical, analytical and numerical methods were applied for safe tunnel design. The rock mass quality and support in these areas were estimated using the rock mass rating (RMR), geological strength index (GSI) and rock mass quality (Q) systems. The detailed rock engineering assessment indicated that there are some critical locations along the headrace tunnel alignment. Rock mass quality values derived from different methods were used for calculating modulus of deformation, Hoek-Brown constants, strength...
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Heritage buildings clad with natural rock endure over time destruction caused by weathering mechanisms, pollution from urban areas, biodeterioration due to organisms, microorganisms, and also the anthropic factor. On the surface of the... more
Heritage buildings clad with natural rock endure over time destruction caused by weathering mechanisms, pollution from urban areas, biodeterioration due to organisms, microorganisms, and also the anthropic factor. On the surface of the limestone samples taken from the ornamental natural rock with which the outside of Markovits-Mathéser house, Oradea, Romania, is clad, two species of fungi were inoculated in the laboratory: Aspergillus spp. and Cladosporium spp. Wollastonite was then applied, and from the imaging analysis (SEM), the inhibition of fungi by it is clearly observed (48 h after its application), which was also confirmed using the image segmentation method. It was also noted that the hydrophilicity of the aqueous suspension of wollastonite resulted in the absorption of water in the substrate, which in turn resulted in the drying out and surface breakage of the specimens. X-ray diffraction analysis showed the presence of the two phases (calcite and quartz) as in the startin...
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Problems in the degradation and biodegradation of cultural heritage objects exposed or stored in public buildings and museums and of construction materials are caused (between others) by the activity of microorganisms. Biodeterioration... more
Problems in the degradation and biodegradation of cultural heritage objects exposed or stored in public buildings and museums and of construction materials are caused (between others) by the activity of microorganisms. Biodeterioration can be observed not only at the level of the building materials of museum buildings, but also at the level of materials from which art objects are made (natural or artificial) and is determined by factors such as the chemical composition and nature of the composition material, the microclimate characteristics and exposure objects, but also through the manner and frequency of surface cleaning and housekeeping in museums. Based on this, the present study offers, through classical methods, a qualitative and quantitative identification of microorganisms inside a heritage museum building located in a temperate climate country. The purpose of the work was to determine to what extent the bacteriological microflora inside can directly and indirectly contribut...
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Effect of local level disaster response is always questionable in Nepal. It is because the capacity of local responding bodies' i.e. local administration, elected representatives and security forces is deficit. Overlooking own role... more
Effect of local level disaster response is always questionable in Nepal. It is because the capacity of local responding bodies' i.e. local administration, elected representatives and security forces is deficit. Overlooking own role and responsibility by public service offices such as health, water supply, road network, rural development, communication, education has overburdened the responsibility of CDO during disaster response and eroded the effectiveness of cluster approach. Similarly, over-reliance on security forces from relief and rescue to rehabilitation and reconstruction have also garnered lethargy amongst civil administration and public service offices wearing away their capacity. For that reason, it is utmost important that the prevailing tendency should be altered and derailed local level response mechanism should be brought into the right track.
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Local authorities i.e. government officials working at the district level and below and elected representatives of municipalities are the steering body of local-level disaster response mechanism in Nepal. The effectiveness of response... more
Local authorities i.e. government officials working at the district level and below and elected representatives of municipalities are the steering body of local-level disaster response mechanism in Nepal. The effectiveness of response operation moreover depends on their competency. This paper investigates their disaster response knowledge, preparedness, and perception, and to identify gaps and suggest recommendations.The prevailing competency of Nepalese local authorities doesn’t warrant an effective response during the time of disaster. They lack awareness and preparedness. Amidst their positive perception towards the need of disaster response capacity building, in the void of an effective mechanism, the government has failed to enhance their competency.The national investment for disaster response competency building is meager in Nepal. The country heavily relies on foreign aid. The present capacity-building mechanism should be redressed from the newer dynamic.
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Loss associated with geodisasters is immense in South Asia, not only in terms of human lives but also in terms of property destroyed. Despite increasing geodisaster risk in the South Asian Region, awareness and understanding of georisks... more
Loss associated with geodisasters is immense in South Asia, not only in terms of human lives but also in terms of property destroyed. Despite increasing geodisaster risk in the South Asian Region, awareness and understanding of georisks among people and governments remains low. Exposure and vulnerability to geohazards and their consequential impacts are not yet at the forefront of development agendas in the all South Asian countries. Situations are worst in Nepal, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. In many cases, the disaster management authorities in these countries could not accept the fact that the geohazards in this region are directly associated with fragile geological settings and weak understanding of engineering geology of the region. This paper describes importance of engineering geological study in south Asia for geodisaster management.
Research Interests: Geography and South Asia
West Java is the most risky province to landslide events in Indonesia due to extreme geo-morphological condition, climatic condition and densely populated with immense development activities. This study aims to explore distribution and... more
West Java is the most risky province to landslide events in Indonesia due to extreme geo-morphological condition, climatic condition and densely populated with immense development activities. This study aims to explore distribution and characteristic of landslide in West Java. Geomorphological and archive inventories were prepared for the selected study area. The geomorphological inventory contains information about landslides that occurred before 1994, whereas the archive inventory includes recent landslides (1994 to 2010). Frequency-size statistics has been used to explore characteristics of landslide maps and to understand evolution of landscape in the study area due to slope movement. This study reveals that prepared landslide map includes a substantial fraction of all landslides at all scales (small-medium-large). However, archive inventory was incomplete in size aspect due to the limitation of landslide mapping technique. Geomorphological inventory showed rollover whose positi...
A highly catastrophic river in the eastern part of Nepal the Koshi (Sorrow of Bihar, India) has been selected for this study. On 18 of August 2008, the river changed its original course towards the eastern side by breaking its embankment.... more
A highly catastrophic river in the eastern part of Nepal the Koshi (Sorrow of Bihar, India) has been selected for this study. On 18 of August 2008, the river changed its original course towards the eastern side by breaking its embankment. Even though the flood was of great magnitude, surprisingly only the 2 casualties was reported because of prompt pre-information by media. The stratified random sampling from questionnaire shows that 77% respondents considered the radio (mostly FM radio) as the major source of information responsible for providing protection from flood as these warnings led people to take quick precautions. The survey showed that the timely forecast of disaster by FM radio and text message warnings were the most effective. The study also showed that the information flow at least 24 hours prior to the disaster would be manageable comfortably with community effort even without the presence of government rescue agencies. The role of other media such as newspapers and t...
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West Java Province is the most landslide risky area in Indonesia owing to extreme geo-morphological conditions, climatic conditions and densely populated settlements with immense completed and ongoing development activities. So, a... more
West Java Province is the most landslide risky area in Indonesia owing to extreme geo-morphological conditions, climatic conditions and densely populated settlements with immense completed and ongoing development activities. So, a landslide susceptibility map at regional scale in this province is a fundamental tool for risk management and land-use planning. Logistic regression and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models are the most frequently used tools for landslide susceptibility assessment, mainly because they are capable of handling the nature of landslide data. The main objective of this study is to apply logistic regression and ANN models and compare their performance for landslide susceptibility mapping in volcanic mountains of West Java Province. In addition, the model application is proposed to identify the most contributing factors to landslide events in the study area. The spatial database built in GIS platform consists of landslide inventory, four topographical parameters (slope, aspect, relief, distance to river), three geological parameters (distance to volcano crater, distance to thrust and fault, geological formation), and two anthropogenic parameters (distance to road, land use). The logistic regression model in this study revealed that slope, geological formations, distance to road and distance to volcano are the most influential factors of landslide events while, the ANN model revealed that distance to volcano crater, geological formation, distance to road, and land-use are the most important causal factors of landslides in the study area. Moreover, an evaluation of the model showed that the ANN model has a higher accuracy than the logistic regression model.West Java Province is the most landslide risky area in Indonesia owing to extreme geo-morphological conditions, climatic conditions and densely populated settlements with immense completed and ongoing development activities. So, a landslide susceptibility map at regional scale in this province is a fundamental tool for risk management and land-use planning. Logistic regression and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models are the most frequently used tools for landslide susceptibility assessment, mainly because they are capable of handling the nature of landslide data. The main objective of this study is to apply logistic regression and ANN models and compare their performance for landslide susceptibility mapping in volcanic mountains of West Java Province. In addition, the model application is proposed to identify the most contributing factors to landslide events in the study area. The spatial database built in GIS platform consists of landslide inventory, four topographical parameters (slope, aspect, relie...
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The spread of COVID-19 is posing significant challenges to the household (HH) waste management sectors putting waste personnel and concerned bodies under massive pressure. The chain of collection, segregation, recycling, and disposal of... more
The spread of COVID-19 is posing significant challenges to the household (HH) waste management sectors putting waste personnel and concerned bodies under massive pressure. The chain of collection, segregation, recycling, and disposal of household generated wastes is interrupted. This study aimed to assess how the household waste management chain was disrupted by novel coronavirus in Nepal and find the perception of the people towards the existing household waste management system (HHWMS). A descriptive online survey was carried out among 512 people using a cross-sectional research design and data was collected through a self-administered questionnaire method. Both descriptive, as well as inferential tests, were conducted using SPSS software. The finding of this study showed that 62.3% of respondents were not satisfied with the present HHWMS. Furthermore, there was a significant association of the satisfaction level of household waste management during coronavirus outbreak with gende...
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DOI = 10.3126/hjs.v5i7.1276 Himalayan Journal of Sciences Vol.5(7) (Special Issue) 2008 p.80
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Research Interests: Civil Engineering, Geology, Environmental Geology, Clay Minerals, Earth and Environmental Sciences, and 10 moreComparative Analysis, Natural disaster, Landslide, Clay mineralogy, Spatial Variation, Soil Characteristics, Interdisciplinary Engineering, Environmental, Pore Water Pressure, and Internal Friction
Research Interests: Civil Engineering, Cartography, Geology, Environmental Geology, Clay Minerals, and 15 moreDigital Elevation Models, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Faults, Debris Flow, Gneiss, Landslide, Hydrothermal Alteration, Mineralization, Interdisciplinary Engineering, Large Scale, metamorphic Rocks, Folds, Environmental, Laboratory Tests, and Main Central Thrust
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Nepal is one of the earthquake-prone countries in the Himalayan region and earthquakes in Nepal have been reported since 1255. Recent Gorkha Earthquake measuring Mw7.8 occurred at 11:56 AM Nepal Standard Time on 25 April 2015 with an... more
Nepal is one of the earthquake-prone countries in the Himalayan region and earthquakes in Nepal have been reported since 1255. Recent Gorkha Earthquake measuring Mw7.8 occurred at 11:56 AM Nepal Standard Time on 25 April 2015 with an epicenter 77 km northwest of Kathmandu at Barpak village of Gorkha district and killed more than 8900 people. This earthquake was the one of the most powerful earthquakes to strike central Nepal since the 1934 Nepal-Bihar earthquake. Earthquake-induced landslides, land subsidence, and liquefaction are major engineering geological issues after the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake in central Nepal. In the case of the Gorkha Earthquake, topographic effect is quite well observed in many towns and villages on ridge in mountainous regions. Many houses on the ridge were damaged and many tension cracks were observed on ridges. Rock fall, shallow landslides and dry debris fall, deep seated landslides, debris flow and avalanche, valley fill collapse and cut-and-fill failur...
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Nepal is an earthquake-prone country and earthquakes in Nepal have been documented since 1255. Earthquake-induced landslides, mainly rockfall and dry debris fall were major geological issues after the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake in central... more
Nepal is an earthquake-prone country and earthquakes in Nepal have been documented since 1255. Earthquake-induced landslides, mainly rockfall and dry debris fall were major geological issues after the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake in central Nepal. Many hydropower projects and roads of central Nepal faced rockfall problems after the earthquake and the damaged areas need extensive support for research and mitigations. As a result, a mitigation plan was initiated in a hydropower project. Detailed investigation has been done to understand the rockfall problems and a suitable remedy for the selected project site was implemented. This paper describes rockfall problems in Nepal and their analysis. It also briefly describes a site modeled for rockfall protection and suggests new technology for rockfall protection systems in the Himalaya.
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The unique geography and fragile geological condition have made Nepal more prone to various types of disasters. The 2015 Gorkha Earthquake had a serious effect on one-third of the population of Nepal. Disaster comes with both... more
The unique geography and fragile geological condition have made Nepal more prone to various types of disasters. The 2015 Gorkha Earthquake had a serious effect on one-third of the population of Nepal. Disaster comes with both opportunities and consequences. It depends on how a country and affected people deal with the situations. After the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake, many people especially those from the affected districts were assumed to be sensitized regarding the consequences of Earthquake disaster. In general, the disaster affected people have certainly gained know-how of the disaster to some extent even through experiences. But, the people who are less affected by the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake are yet to be aware of its major consequences. Hence, this research aims to understand the perception of people who were not severely affected by the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake but they are at high risk of future earthquake events. This research evaluated whether such people are aware of the major d...
In Nepal, rockfall related studies are rarely conducted and are limited to the landslide study along with few case studies on rockfall events. Rockfall problems in Nepal are more frequent in the Higher Himalayan region than Midland and... more
In Nepal, rockfall related studies are rarely conducted and are limited to the landslide study along with few case studies on rockfall events. Rockfall problems in Nepal are more frequent in the Higher Himalayan region than Midland and Lesser Himalayan regions. In the glaciated valley and glacial lakes, rockfall and associated tsunami like huge wave are a recently initiated research. In this context, a glacial lake of the Himalaya, named as Imja Glacial Lake situated in eastern Nepal has been selected to understand the rockfall problems and their possible consequences. The lake was formed at the end part of the Imja glacier. The northern valley slope of Imja Glacier Lake, i.e. southern slope of the Island Peak has serious problem of rockfall into the lake. Rockfall simulation was performed during this research with field data. Three different Plots were defined for simulation of rockfall. Among them, Plot III seems to be the most hazardous since the detached boulders on the higher e...
In this paper, we estimate the seismogenic energy during the Nepal Earthquake (25 April 2015) and studied the ground motion time-frequency characteristics in Kathmandu valley. The idea to analyze time-frequency characteristic of... more
In this paper, we estimate the seismogenic energy during the Nepal Earthquake (25 April 2015) and studied the ground motion time-frequency characteristics in Kathmandu valley. The idea to analyze time-frequency characteristic of seismogenic energy signal is based on wavelet transform which we employed here. Wavelet transform has been used as a powerful signal analysis tools in various fields like compression, time-frequency analysis, earthquake parameter determination, climate studies, etc. This technique is particularly suitable for non-stationary signal. It is well recognized that the earthquake ground motion is a non-stationary random process. In order to characterize a non-stationary random process, it is required immeasurable samples in the mathematical sense. The wavelet transformation procedures that we follow here helps in random analyses of linear and non-linear structural systems, which are subjected to earthquake ground motion. The manners of seismic ground motion are cha...
Landslides are common geologic hazard occurring in all parts of the world predominantly in the rainy season. In recent years, landslide risk mapping has played an important role in developing land-use planning and it helps to minimize the... more
Landslides are common geologic hazard occurring in all parts of the world predominantly in the rainy season. In recent years, landslide risk mapping has played an important role in developing land-use planning and it helps to minimize the loss of lives and damages to property. A variety of approaches have been used in landslide hazard and risk assessment and these can be classified into heuristic approach, statistical approach, deterministic approach, etc. An abrupt development of computers after 1990, geographic information systems (GIS) became essential tools for landslide hazard assessment. However, validation and replication is always difficult and there are little works on the satisfactory validation of various approaches. This paper deals with several aspects of landslide hazard and risk assessment by presenting a focalized review of GIS-based landslide hazard and risk assessment with a critical information of the state of the art in using GIS and digital elevation model (DEM)...
Siwaliks hill slope of the Himalaya developed on young and relatively unconsolidated soft rock terrain and it comprises many vertical slopes and rugged terrain. Siwaliks region is low elevation area of the Nepal Himalaya having average... more
Siwaliks hill slope of the Himalaya developed on young and relatively unconsolidated soft rock terrain and it comprises many vertical slopes and rugged terrain. Siwaliks region is low elevation area of the Nepal Himalaya having average elevation of 500 m and average annual rainfall of 2000 to 2500 mm. River valleys of Siwaliks are extensively used for cultivation and are
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Research Interests: Geology and Geomorphology
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In Nepal, people live in widely spread settlements in the fragile Himalayan terrains, and suffer more from landslides than from any other type of natural disaster. The small-scale rainfall-triggered landslides in the Lesser Himalaya of... more
In Nepal, people live in widely spread settlements in the fragile Himalayan terrains, and suffer more from landslides than from any other type of natural disaster. The small-scale rainfall-triggered landslides in the Lesser Himalaya of Nepal are generally shallow (about 0.5 to 2.5 m) and are triggered by changes in the physical property of soil layers during rainfall. The relation between landslides and slope hydrology has received little attention in Himalayan landslide research. Thus, this paper deals with the probability of slope failure during extreme rainfall events by considering a digital elevation model (DEM)-based hydrological model for soil saturation depth and an infinite slope stability model. Deterministic distributed analysis in a geographic information system (GIS) was carried out to calculate the probability of slope failure. A simple method of error propagation was used to calculate the variance of the safety factors and the probability of failure. When normally distributed failure probability values were checked against existing landslides, it was found that more than 50% of the pixels of existing landslides coincided with a high calculated probability of failure. Although the deterministic distributed analysis has certain drawbacks, as described by previous researchers, this study concluded that the calculated failure probability can be utilised to predict the probability of slope failure in Himalayan terrain during extreme rainfall events.
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Flow-like landslides triggered by rainfall are very prominent in Nepal and Shikoku, Japan. In July 2002, many landslides occurred in the southern hills of the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, because of torrential rainfall. A single flow-like... more
Flow-like landslides triggered by rainfall are very prominent in Nepal and Shikoku, Japan. In July 2002, many landslides occurred in the southern hills of the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, because of torrential rainfall. A single flow-like landslide occurred at Matatirtha, a small village situated at the south marginal hill of Kathmandu, killing 18 people who lived at the foot of the
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ABSTRACT Landslides, primarily occurring in deep-seated landslide areas, frequently damage important roads in Nepal and contribute to massive economic losses and public suffering every year. Efforts to understand these landslides, which... more
ABSTRACT Landslides, primarily occurring in deep-seated landslide areas, frequently damage important roads in Nepal and contribute to massive economic losses and public suffering every year. Efforts to understand these landslides, which are often only regarded as geological phenomena, through material shear behaviour however remain insignificantly reported. In order to narrow this research gap, this paper first addresses spatial distribution of these landslides in about 150-km arterial road corridors in central Nepal, and then discusses their occurrence mechanism in terms of a relation between material shear strength and mineralogical composition. The deep-seated landslide inventory prepared out of the aerial photos and topo-sheets revealed that the landslide distribution is dominant in phyllitic and slate zones of geology while the laboratory tests on clay materials, sampled from 15 locations in the study area, in ring shear machine and x-ray diffractometer exhibited that the landslide soils, especially from the phyllitic area, possess comparatively high angle of shear resistance in a range of 20-30 degrees with remarkable influence of mica and chlorite composition, whose increased relative amount was found to result in notable decrease of the angle of shear resistance.
Research Interests: Management, Geology, Geomorphology, Prediction, Natural Hazards, and 15 moreDisaster Management, Models, Land Use, Accuracy, Hills, Hazard Mapping, Hazard Assessment, Drainage, Precision, Field Data, Area Under the Curve, Geographic Information System, Geographic Information Systems, GIS, and Prediction Accuracy
A large number of human settlements on the Nepal Himalayas are situated either on old landslide mass or on landslide-prone areas. As a result, a great number of people are affected by large- and small-scale landslides all over the... more
A large number of human settlements on the Nepal Himalayas are situated either on old landslide mass or on landslide-prone areas. As a result, a great number of people are affected by large- and small-scale landslides all over the Himalayas especially during monsoon periods. In Nepal, only in the half monsoon period (June 10 to August 15), 70, 50 and 68 people were killed from landslides in 2007, 2008 and 2009, respectively. In this context, this paper highlights monsoon rainfall and their implications in the Nepal Himalaya. In Nepal, monsoon is major source of rainfall in summer and approximately 80% of the annual total rainfall occurs from June to September. The measured values of mean annual precipitation in Nepal range from a low of approximately 250 mm at area north of the Himalaya to many areas exceeding 6,000 mm. The mean annual rainfall varying between 1500 mm and 2500 mm predominate over most of the country. In Nepal, the daily distribution of precipitation during rainy sea...