{"id":551,"date":"2013-09-26T14:12:55","date_gmt":"2013-09-26T12:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/risk\/?p=551"},"modified":"2013-09-26T17:07:16","modified_gmt":"2013-09-26T15:07:16","slug":"stephanie-jaquet-forest-cover-trends-and-landslides-occurrence-in-selected-areas-dolakha-district-central-nepal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/risk\/stephanie-jaquet-forest-cover-trends-and-landslides-occurrence-in-selected-areas-dolakha-district-central-nepal\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephanie Jaquet: Forest cover trends and landslides occurrence in selected areas, Dolakha District, Central Nepal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephanie Jaquet<\/em>
\nSupervisor:\u00a0Prof. Michel Jayboyedoff<\/em>
\nExperts:\u00a0\u00a0Dr. Marc-Henri Derron,\u00a0Dr. Jane Carter<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

The purpose of this thesis is to study forest cover changes and degradation trends as well as\u00a0to make risk assessments for selected study cases in Dolakha district, Central Nepal over\u00a0the period 1979-2009.<\/p>\n

The forest cover is an important issue in Nepal. It decreased for decades; however, since\u00a0the Forest Act in 1993, Community Forests have been established in all districts in Nepal.\u00a0Among other benefits, this change in the forest management is supposed to reduce the\u00a0deforestation rate. Although the deforestation rate is still negative, -1.35 % annually (Petley,\u00a02007), the present study shows a general increase of the forest cover in the area of study\u00a0(Central Nepal). In 2009, forest covered about 46.3 % of the study areas compared to only\u00a028 % in 1992. The study shows a clear increase of forest cover in gullies, formerly degraded\u00a0areas, expanded forest areas and next to rivers. Community forests are essential for\u00a0mountain populations as forests bring the communities income and reduce erosion. Where\u00a0improved forest policies and rules are applied, better forest management has made visible\u00a0improved changes in forest cover.<\/p>\n

Risk has been assessed in three different areas with different types of landslides. In Thang
\nThang (Suspa Village Development Committee (VDC)), there is a slow-moving landslide and\u00a0potential debris flows. The risk is high in this area mainly due a high potential for debris flow\u00a0partly caused by an uncemented irrigation canal. In case of heavy rainfall the debris flow will\u00a0be a sudden event, which cannot be prevented and monitored like a landslide. In addition,\u00a0poor forest management and lack of resources have made this village very vulnerable to all\u00a0hazards. In Kothepole and Phedi (Suspa VDC), landslides which occurred in 1975 are\u00a0nowadays covered by forests even if landslides are still slowly active. In Khariswara\u00a0(Gairimudi VDC), a sudden large landslide occurred the 15th of September, 2010 during our\u00a0field trip. Our risk assessment shows that risk depends mainly on distance to the scarp.\u00a0Even though risk is high, the high education of the people of Khariswara and their good\u00a0organization have reduced their exposure. Indeed, they were actively monitoring the\u00a0landslide three times a day during the rainy season. The last case study is located in\u00a0Eklebari (Bhirkot VDC) where there is a slow moving landslide, which is threatening mainly\u00a0houses upslope without posing a great risk for people. A district road crosses the same\u00a0landslide downslope and its more active parts are threatening the road. The road has\u00a0already been blocked several times in the past decades and more recently for 14 days in\u00a02010. The lack of proper maintenance is making the road even more susceptible to\u00a0landslides as the steep slope is undercut. Finally, in the north of this landslide, there is a\u00a0school which is threatened by debris flows, mitigation measures have been taken but they\u00a0are not sufficient to protect school buildings.<\/p>\n

Proper mitigation measures are difficult to undertake mainly because of the lack of\u00a0resources. Gabion walls are the most commonly used method with drainages and\u00a0bioengineering to mitigate roads. Thus forests are a good way to mitigate shallow landslides.\u00a0This study shows how landslides and forests are linked. If forest degradation is considerable,\u00a0erosion is more likely and slopes are more prone to landslides and gully erosion. Forests are\u00a0important for stabilizing slopes and protecting infrastructures from rock falls. Furthermore,\u00a0even though in some cases (i.e. deep-seated landslides) forests cannot help to reduce\u00a0landslide hazard, it can at least provide people with fodder, timber and income.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephanie Jaquet Supervisor:\u00a0Prof. Michel Jayboyedoff Experts:\u00a0\u00a0Dr. Marc-Henri Derron,\u00a0Dr. Jane Carter The purpose of this thesis is to study forest cover changes and degradation trends as well as\u00a0to make risk assessments … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1341,"featured_media":881,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[73758],"tags":[29716],"class_list":{"0":"post-551","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-masters_completed","8":"tag-29716"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/risk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/risk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/risk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/risk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1341"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/risk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/risk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/risk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/risk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/risk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/risk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}