Preliminary seismic risk assessment of Dharan city in eastern Nepal using Landsat images

Poster presentation at 2015 GIS and Remote Sensing Research Symposium, Virginia Tech

April 10, 2015

Nepal lies in the southern slopes of the Himalayan range, which is one of the most active mountain ranges in the world. The Himalayan range was formed due to collisions between the Indian and Tibetan plates. As a result, there is a presence of active faults that pose constant threats of the earthquake in the country. Nepal has a long history of destructive earthquakes each occurring in 100 years interval. The latest hit was on August 20, 1988, which devastated the entire Eastern region and part of the Central regions. It was 6.5 magnitude in Richter scale. It claimed 721 human lives, injured 6,553 people and damaged other developmental infrastructures (Nepal Disaster Report 2011). Earthquake risk and vulnerability assessment are primarily based on two things: location and magnitude of earthquakes, and pattern of human settlement and building types. So far, we have good understanding about the active seismic zones but we cannot accurately predict the magnitude and time of the earthquake. Hence, to minimize the earthquake risk, we need to reduce the social vulnerability related with human settlement and building types. This work aims to understand how the human settlement has been increased in one of the eastern city of Nepal, Dharan, using Landsat sequential images and are exposed to constant threat of earthquake risk.

To download poster pdf: https://goo.gl/fKIMaU

#Hokies4Nepal: Earthquake 2015 fundraising campaign

We, Nepalese Student Association at Virginia Tech are coordinating the fund-raising program at Blacksburg campus to help communities at Nuwakot district. Nuwakot is one of the hardest hit districts, north to capital city Kathmandu. So far, about 1,100 lives are claimed, about 1,500 people injured, and 60,000 houses are completely destroyed.

(Photo: Devi Gnyawali)

The details of the fundraising campaign can be found at 

http://www.nepal.org.vt.edu/nepalearthquake2015/

Scholarships for Risk Masters at Durham University

Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience (IHRR) in conjunction with Collingwood College, Durham University is offering ONE international and FOUR  tuition fee scholarships to pursue Masters degree in Risk and Hazards. The interested candidates who are planning to study in 2014 can apply in one of the courses below.

•  MSc in Risk and Environmental Hazard
•  MA in Risk and Security
• MA in Risk, Health and Public Policy 

SAVE the Real TIGER

Shashank Poudel

Reblogged from Ban Paley

As an urban youth living a fairly advantageous life what does tiger mean to most of us? A question we need to ask ourselves if we are to protect nature’s magnificent treasury. Probably for youngsters in Kathmandu or Bharatpur tiger means a dangerous beast. We feared it in our zoo visits and still watch a documentary in National Geographic channel but we don’t know what benefits of conserving it are. Why would we care for its survival? Do we know what the plight of the tiger is? We don’t know that our future is in peril if we fail to save the tiger from extinction.

Royal Bengal Tiger (Photo: Tiger Conservation Network Facebook Page)

नव बर्ष २०७० सालको शुभकामना !!!

नयाँ बर्ष बिक्रम सम्बत २०७० शुरु हुन लाग्दै छ । हुन त नेपालमा शुरु पनि भईसक्यो । आफु झण्डै ५ घण्टा पछाडी भएकोले मात्रै अझै पनि “Eve” कै मुडमा छु । यतिखेर म अघिल्लो बर्ष २०६९ लाई स्वागत गर्दाको क्षणहरुलाई सम्झदै छु । एक दर्जन साथिहरु मिलेर २०६९ लाई स्वागत गर्न हामी काठमाडौ उपत्यकाबाट नजिकै चिसापानी पदयात्रामा गएका थियौ । दिनभरको थकानलाई वास्ता नगरी नाचगान र मधुपानमा झुमेका थियौ । अहिले यसो सम्झेर ल्याउदा त बढो रमाईलो पो गरिएको रै’छ त ! खै कस्तो खालको मानबिय स्वभाब हो, सम्झनाका पोकाहरु फुकाउदा ति यादहरु असरल्ल भएर अझ बढि रमाईला, आनन्ददायक र रोमाञ्चक पो लाग्ने गर्छन । अरुलाई कस्तो महशुस हुने गर्छ कुन्नि, म भने ति असरल्ल यादहरुलाई हेरे अलि धेरै नै रम्ने गर्छु र फेरि सँगाल्दै पोको पार्ने गर्छु। 

Flooding and agent-based modeling (ABM)

When we talk about computer modeling, the language used is so tough to understand and full of jargons. If you are beginner, it’s almost impossible to get through it. This is what I felt when I tried to understand about hydrological modeling, in particular, flood modeling. The flooding events around the globe often come with message that the related information are not efficiently communicated during and after the event.

 

While discussing these issues I found one interesting paper about agent-based flood modeling by Dawson et. al. 2011 entitled “An agent based model for risk-based flood incident management” published in Natural Hazards. The more interesting stuff is this 4:19 minute long YouTube video which explains how this model works. To my knowledge this kind of video is not common explaining about how it works. If you are interested about the model itself, you can follow this link to Newcastle University page.

 

 

 

Full citation of paper: Dawson, R.J., Peppe, R. and Wang, M. 2011. An Agent-based Model for Risk-based Flood Incident Management. Natural Hazards, 59(1): 167-189



 

Report about 'The Arab Spring and Climate Change'

It is always interesting to learn about the connection between natural sciences and social sciences. And for me, it is even more exciting to learn the impact of the greatest challenge of human kind 'Climate Change' with historic political movement the 'Arab Spring' happened in the Arab world. In this connection, I found one report which tries to establish a link between the Arab Spring and Climate Change.

 

In 2012, Troy Sternberg, a scholar of Oxford University, published an article in Applied Geography Volume 34 (519-524) entitled “Chinese drought, bread and the Arab Spring” in which he argues that the Arab spring was a result of increased wheat price in the international market due to winter drought in eastern china which might be caused by climate change. 

 

 Photo: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/report/2013/02/28/54579/the-arab-spring-and-climate-change/

 

Another report published in February 2013 by Centre for American Progress and Centre for Climate and Security entitled “The Arab Spring and Climate Change: A Climate and Security Correlations Series” is a collection of five different articles in climate change, conflict, and economy that are edited by Caitlin E. Werrell and Francesco Femia. The report highlights Climate Change as a stressor  and indirectly argue that the Arab Spring was caused by Climate Change. In addition, the essays compiled in this report give a clear sense of relation between climate change in terms of record winter drought in China and its subsequent global wheat shortages, and civil unrest in Egypt stimulated by increased price of wheat in the market.

 

Asia Pacific Leadership Programme on Environment for Sustainable Development

CALL FOR APPLICATION !!!

UNEP-Tongji Institute of Environment for Sustainable Development (IESD) has announced this year Asia-Pacific Leadership Programme on Environment for Sustainable Development (APLP). This year theme is on ‘Health and Sustainable Development’ and will be held from 3-7 June in Shanghai, China. As an alumnus of this course, I got email announcement for this year.

You can find more information on facebook page or in the website. If you are interested in last year programme which I attended you can click on APLP 2012.

Open Society Foundations/Durham University Scholarships

For Afghanistan, Indonesia, Nepal and Palestine!

 

Open Society Foundation (OSF) has announced scholarship for Risk Master’s course (MSc in Risk and Environmental Hazards, MA in Health and Public Policy and MA in Risk and Security) in Durham University , UK. It is a full scholarship program which covers tuition fee, living cost and one time two way international travel costs.

 

If you want to pursue your career in the field of risk and hazards or want to be disaster professional or want to enter into lucrative insurance industry, this could be the gateway. Department of Geography at Durham University is one of the best departments in the world with diverse range of researchers from human to physical geography.

 

Deadline: Feb 15, 2013.

 

Below are the details of the announcements from OSF website. The local contact office for Nepal is Alliance for Social Dialogue (ASD). Details about ASD and application process can also be found here at: http://asd.org.np/en/scholarships/uk/durham-university.

Role of social media during Seti Flood 2012 Nepal

Nepal is highly prone to natural hazards like Earthquake, Floods, Landslides, and Glacial Lake Outbursts Flood (GLOF). Every year flood creates havoc during the monsoon period as it accounts for two-third of the total precipitation in the country. The rivers originating from the high Himalayan region are the perennial source of water for the downstream people. Due to high relief and unstable slopes these rivers carry high sediment loads and volume causing flooding downstream. People in the mid hills and southern parts of the country face floods every year and have been a routine for coping with them. Loss of agricultural land, destruction of the highway for a month and temporary water logging are some of the common examples reported in the media.