Using Nepal to understand the Nexus of Climate Change and Land-Use
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13052/spee1048-5236.4247Keywords:
Nepal, land use, climate change, sustainable development, topography, ecosystems, urbanization, environmental degradation, greenhouse gas emissions, deforestationAbstract
The nexus between land use and climate change is a critical aspect of sustainable development, and few places show this inter-relationship better than Nepal. This paper uses Nepal as an example to explore the interconnections between land use and climate change, highlighting the key challenges and opportunities.
Nepal, with its diverse topography and ecosystems, is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The country’s unique land use patterns, including agriculture, forest cover, and urbanization, play a significant role in shaping its climate resilience and carbon balance. This paper highlights the complex relationship between land use and climate change in such an environment. Balancing land use practices, conserving forests, and biodiversity, and promoting sustainable agriculture are essential for achieving climate resilience and sustainable development. The paper shows that only by addressing the nexus between land use and climate change, can Nepal move towards a more sustainable and climate-resilient future.
Downloads
References
Bajracharya, S.R., Maharjan, S.B., Shrestha, F., Sherpa, T.C., Wagle, N., Shrestha, A.B. (2020), Inventory of glacial lakes and identification of potentially dangerous glacial lakes in the Koshi, Gandaki, and Karnali river basins of Nepal, the Tibet Autonomous region of China, and India. Kathmandu, Nepal: International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).
Baral, S., Nepal S., Pandey V.P., Khadka M., Gyawali D. (2023). Position paper on enhancing water security in Nepal. Prepared for the UN 2023 Water Conference, March 22–24, 2023, New York.
Bhandari Medani P. (2019). “Bashudaiva Kutumbakkam” – The entire world is our home and all living beings are our relatives. Why do we need to worry about climate change, with reference to pollution problems in the major cities of India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan? Adv Agr Environ Sci. (2019);2(1): 8–35. DOI: 10.30881/aaeoa.00019 (second part) http://ologyjournals.com/aaeoa/aaeoa_00019.pdf.
Bhandari Medani P. and Shvindina Hanna (2019), The Problems and consequences of Sustainable Development Goals, in Bhandari, Medani P. and Shvindina Hanna (edits) Reducing Inequalities Towards Sustainable Development Goals: Multilevel Approach, River Publishers, Denmark/the Netherlands – ISBN: Print: 978-87-7022-126-9 E-book: 978-87-7022-125-2.
Bhandari, Medani P, (2019), Live and let others live – the harmony with nature/living beings-in reference to sustainable development (SD) – is contemporary world’s economic and social phenomena is favorable for the sustainability of the planet in reference to India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan? Adv Agr Environ Sci. (2019);2(1): 37–57. DOI: 10.30881/aaeoa.00020 http://ologyjournals.com/aaeoa/aaeoa_00020.pdf.
Bhandari, Medani P. (2018), Green Web-II: Standards and Perspectives from the IUCN, River Publishers, Denmark/the Netherlands ISBN: 978-87-70220-12-5 (Hardback) 978-87-70220-11-8 (eBook).
Bhandari, Medani P. (2019), Sustainable Development: Is This Paradigm the Remedy of All Challenges? Do Its Goals Capture the Essence of Real Development and Sustainability? With Reference to Discourses, Creativeness, Boundaries, and Institutional Architecture, Socioeconomic Challenges, Volume 3, Issue 4, 97–128 ISSN (print) – 2520-6621, ISSN (online) – 2520-6214 https://doi.org/10.21272/sec.3(4).97-128.2019, http://armgpublishing.sumdu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/9.pdf.
Bhandari, Medani P. (2019), The Debates between Quantitative and Qualitative Method: An Ontology and Epistemology of Qualitative Method- the Pedagogical Development, in Douglass Capogrossi (Ed.) Educational Transformation: The University as Catalyst for Human Advancement, Xlibris Corporation, USA ISBN-10: 179604895X; ISBN-13: 978-1796048957.
Bhandari, Medani P. (2020), Getting the Climate Science Facts Right: The Role of the IPCC (Forthcoming), River Publishers, Denmark/the Netherlands – ISBN: 9788770221863 e-ISBN: 9788770221856.
Bhandari, Medani P. (2023), Perspectives on Sociological Theories, Methodological Debates and Organizational Sociology 1st Edition, ISBN 10-8770227802 ISBN-13, 978-8770227803, Rivers Publishers.
Bluffstone, R. (2018), Collective action yields positive outcomes for Nepal’s forests. World Bank blogs. Accessed February 3, 2023.
Chhetri, R., et al. (2021), Forest, agriculture, and migration: contemplating the future of forestry and agriculture in the middle-hills of Nepal. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 1–23.
Devkota, P., Dhakal, S., Shrestha, S., and Shrestha, U. B. (2023), Land use land cover changes in the major cities of Nepal from 1990 to 2020. Environmental and Sustainability Indicators, 17, 100227. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indic.2023.100227.
Department of National Parks and Wildlife (2023) https://dnpwc.gov.np/media/others/PAs_Nepal_New2023_1.jpg.
DFRS (2018), Forest Cover Maps of Local Levels (753) of Nepal. Department of Forest Research and Survey (DFRS), Kathmandu, Nepal.
Food and Agriculture – FAO (2017), The Future of Food and Agriculture – Trends and Challenges; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: Rome, Italy, pp. 46–55. ISBN 978-92-5-109551-5.
Fox, J., et al. (2019), Mapping and understanding changes in tree cover in Nepal: 1992 to 2016. J. Forest Livelihood, 18(1).
FRTC. (2022), Land cover of Nepal [Data set]. FRTC. https://doi.org/10.26066/RDS.1972729 http://rds.icimod.org/Home/DataDetail?metadataId=1972729.
IPCC (2019), Climate Change and Land: an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems [P.R. Shukla, J. Skea, E. Calvo Buendia, V. Masson-Delmotte, H.-O. Pörtner, D. C. Roberts, P. Zhai, R. Slade, S. Connors, R. van Diemen, M. Ferrat, E. Haughey, S. Luz, S. Neogi, M. Pathak, J. Petzold, J. Portugal Pereira, P. Vyas, E. Huntley, K. Kissick, M. Belkacemi, J. Malley, (eds.)]. In press.
IPCC (2022), Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA, 3056 pp., doi: 10.1017/9781009325844.
IPCC (2022), Summary for Policymakers [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, M. Tignor, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem (eds.)]. In: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA, pp. 3–33, doi: 10.1017/9781009325844.001.
Mbow, C., Rosenzweig, C., Barioni, L.G., Benton, T.G., Herrero, M., Krishnapillai, M., Liwenga, E., Pradhan, P., Rivera-Ferre, M.G., Sapkota, T., et al. (2019), Food security. In Climate Change and Land: An IPCC Special Report on Climate Change, Desertification, Land Degradation, Sustainable Land Management, Food Security, and Greenhouse Gas Fluxes in Terrestrial Ecosystems, Shukla, P.R., Skea, J., Calvo Buendia, E., Masson-Delmotte, V., Pörtner, H.-O., Roberts, D.C., Zhai, P., Slade, R., Connors, S., van Diemen, R., et al., Eds., Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Paris, France
MoAD – Ministry of Agricultural Development (2016), Statistical information on Nepalese agriculture (2015/16). Kathmandu, Nepal: Ministry of Agricultural Development, Agribusiness Promotion and Statistics Division, Singha Durbar, Kathmandu. Government of Nepal.
NASA (2022), Land-Cover and Land-Use Change Program Twenty-Five Years of Community Forestry: Mapping Forest Dynamics in the Middle Hills of Nepal.
Saah, D., Tenneson, K., Matin, M., Uddin, K., Cutter, P., Poortinga, A., Nguyen, Q. H., Patterson, M., Johnson, G., Markert, K., Flores, A., Anderson, E., Weigel, A., Ellenberg, W. L., Bhargava, R., Aekakkararungroj, A., Bhandari, B., Khanal, N., Housman, I. W., …Chishtie, F. (2019), Land Cover Mapping in Data Scarce Environments: Challenges and Opportunities. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 7. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2019.00150.
Smith, A. C., et al. (2023), Community Forest management led to rapid local forest gain in Nepal: A 29-year mixed methods retrospective case study. Land Use Policy, 126, 106526.
Subedi, Roshan, Madhav Karki, and Dinesh Panday. (2020), “Food System and Water–Energy–Biodiversity Nexus in Nepal: A Review” Agronomy 10, no. 8: 1129. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10081129.
Thapa, P. (2022), The Relationship between Land Use and Climate Change: A Case Study of Nepal. IntechOpen. doi: 10.5772/intechopen.98282 https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/76898.
The United Nations. (2015), Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. https://sdg.guide/sources-by-chapter-bibliography-e6d077ea03c8.
United Nations (2017), Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 6 July 2017, Work of the Statistical Commission pertaining to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (A/RES/71/313.
FAO – United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (2016) Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015: How are the World’s Forests Changing? Rome: FAO. Accessed February 3, 2023.
United Nations (2023), The United Nations World Water Development Report 2023: Partnerships and Cooperation for Water. UNESCO, Paris. ISBN 978-92-3-100576-3. Mar 15, 2023.
Van Den Hoek, J., et al. (2021), Shedding new light on mountainous forest growth: a cross-scale evaluation of the effects of topographic illumination correction on 25 years of forest cover change across Nepal. Remote Sensing, 13(11), 2131.
Wei, F., Wang, S., Brandt, M., Fu, B., Meadows, M. E., Wang, L., et al. (2021), Responses and feedbacks of African dryland ecosystems to environmental changes. Curr. Opin. Environ. Sustain. 48, 29–35. doi: 10.1016/j.cosust.2020.09.004.
World Bank (2020), Data Bank: World Development Indicators. https://databank.worldbank.org/reports.aspx?source=2&Topic=21.
World Bank (2018), World development report 2019. World Bank Publications.