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The lack of data complicates the design and implementation of disaster risk reduction strategies in mountainous areas in Nepal. Thishampers efforts to strengthen capacities of the local communities to deal with emergencies and hinders post disaster rescue and recovery operations.

Meanwhile, for socio-economic, cultural and emotional reasons, communities continue to live near landslide-prone areas. Piuli Damai, a resident of Khaptad Chhededaha-2, has explained, “We do not have money to buy land in other places and we have loans to repay. We cannot leave this place without repaying the loan.”

Adequate data can play a primary role to address needs of local populations in allocating of scarce resources for disaster risk reduction and the providing crucial services such as healthcare, transportation, financial and security services, such as in cases of landslides.

To tackle this issue, capacity building initiatives are in place to train local populations to collect, compile and utilize data. The data is then merged with official observations and satellite-based precipitation observations and forecasts.

In order to assist in these processes, UNESCO and its partners have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology of Nepal to facilitate data exchange and usage. These exchanges allow for real-time transfer and usage of data to make short as well as long term preparedness for landslide disasters based on the citizen data collection efforts. 

As a pilot project, more than 41 community members, out of a total population of 5921 people in 935 households, have been trained to digitally map and upload their resources on global open platforms, OpenStreetMap. This visual representation assists in identifying the social, economic and cultural reality of the community – factors that make up essential knowledge for effective disaster risk reduction strategies. The project has already developed standard handbook and capacity building tools to upscale the initiative in other landslide prone areas of the country and beyond.

In addition, the initiative has fostered five local schools as active institutional partners to create interest in the scientific process as part of its citizen science learning. The capacity development initiative caters to all 2475 students from Bajedi and Sunkuda area and permits high school students to  expand their  knowledge on basic hydrology, geology, geography, natural landslide causation processes and various scientific tools such as  ICT-enabled flowmeters that are used to measure rainfall and streamflow. 

Landslide occurrence in mountain environments is strongly linked to extreme precipitation but, due to the extreme variations in rainfall and other meteorological variables and scarcity of institutional data collection mechanisms, mapping and forecasting of extreme precipitation is fraught with difficulties

The Landslide-Early Virtual Observatories project is an international collaborative research project that utilizes citizen science and advanced low-cost ICTs to produce knowledge on landslide risks and build local resilience against natural disasters. It empowers local communities in the Karnali River Basin of Western Nepal to collect and process data using ICTs, thus allowing affected communities to participate directly in reducing their risk for landslides.

Citizen science experiments refer to the participation of impacted population not representing any professional organizations in the gathering or analysis of scientific data, and have demonstrated success in advancing scientific knowledge in diverse fields. These experiments have shown particular promise in the field of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) , where it could lead to both immediate as well as a sustained reduction of risks over time.

Beyond these practical advantages, citizen science can widen access and raise interest of the common people to basic scientific methods. This project directly addresses the issue raised by the Hyogo and , which advocate to address the lack of citizen engagements in the DRR strategies.

The Project is part of the Science for Humanitarian Emergencies and Resilience (SHEAR) research program, and aims to support improved disaster resilience and humanitarian response across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. It is funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC). and UNESCO is a project partner.

For more information, contact Bhanu Neupane, b.neupane@unesco.org.