Municipal solid waste management is one of the major challenges that cities in developing countries are facing. Although waste collection services are critical to build a smart city, the focus of both scholarship and action/activism has been more on the utilization of waste than on collection. We devised a choice experiment to elicit the preferences of municipal residents with regard to the various attributes of solid waste collection services in the Bharatpur Metropolitan City of Nepal. The study showed that households identify waste collection frequency, timing of door-to-door waste collection services, and cleanliness of the streets as the critical elements of municipal waste collection that affect their welfare and willingness to pay. While almost all households (95%) were participating in the waste collection service in the study area, more than half (53%) expressed dissatisfaction with the existing service. Women were the main actors engaged in waste collection and disposal at household level. The results of the choice analysis suggest that households prefer a designated waste collection time with waste collection bins placed at regular intervals on the streets for use by pedestrians who often throw garbage on the streets in the absence of bins. For these improvements, households were willing to pay an additional service fee of 10–28% on top of what they were already paying. The study also finds that municipal waste collection can be improved through the involvement of Tole Lane Committees in designing the timing and frequency of the service and by introducing a system of progressive tariffs based on the number of storeys per house.

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Hindu Kush Himalaya is home to many cultural and religious sites. The literature on the valuation of cultural sites in the mountain terrains is thin. Hence, their development and sustainability are often ignored. Using primary survey data from three different sites in the Kailash Sacred Landscape of India and Nepal, the cultural value of religious sites to the visitors and households living in the surrounding areas was estimated using a modified travel cost method. As visitors travel by foot and offer donations at the religious sites, the estimations account for these aspects in travel cost calculations. For the sample sites, the per year average use value of cultural services was estimated to be USD 2.9 million. Excluding the use value to the outside visitors, the annual estimated use value of cultural services to the approximately 200,000 households of the entire KSL area, which covers 31,252 km2, is over USD 22.6 million, which is over 7% and 15% of the per capita income of Indian and Nepali households, respectively, indicating the importance of the natural-cultural environments in rural livelihoods. The estimated values will help planners manage these cultural sites sustainably for improving the livelihoods of the people living in the area.

This study was carried out to design an incentive payment for an ecosystem services (IPES) scheme in the Baitadi Town Water Supply and Sanitation Project of Nepal. The main intention behind the designing of the scheme was to develop strategy for equitable use of water resources and involve communities, watershed and water user, in the sustainable management of water resources. We administered household survey in both the watershed community and water users to elicit their preferences regarding water source management and drinking water supply. A discrete choice experiment was employed in the case of water users which showed that, for them, water quality and quantity are the most important attributes. The estimated annual willingness-to-pay of water users for doubling water availability is NPR 482,076 (USD 4,505) and for doubling the water quantity and the supply of clean water that can be drunk directly from the tap is NPR 1.18 million (USD 10,988). The results of consultations with stakeholders indicate that the construction of public toilets, the regularization of grazing, off-season vegetable farming and drinking water distribution in the upstream area may contribute to maintaining the quality of water while keeping the watershed community satisfied with regard to water-sharing. These activities require NPR 1.17 million (USD 10,987) in the first year and NPR 425,640 (USD 3,978) annually from the second year on. The estimated willingness-to-pay and cost of the watershed activities indicate that implementing IPES in the Baitadi Town Water Supply Project is financially feasible and socially acceptable. Our study recommends the integration of the IPES design into the project design phase in future drinking water scheme, the best option being its integration into the initial environmental examination at the time of project design.