Agriculture is the main economic activity in Nepal, and vegetable farming is one of the major agricultural practices of peri-urban farmers in Kathmandu Valley (KV). In this study, it was hypothesized that vegetable farming contributes significantly to the livelihood of farmers by generating cash and providing employment opportunities. The relationship between livelihood and vegetable farming based on the practices, views, and perceptions of vegetable farmers at four different sites in the outskirts of KV was studied. A purposive sample of 140 farm households was surveyed, and key informant interviews were conducted to collect comprehensive data. Binary logistic regression was used to identify the relationships between farmer livelihood and numerous variables related to vegetable farming. It was found that the most of the surveyed farmers are migrants who have spread to different corners of KV at different times. The surveyed farmers cultivate an average area of 2551.5 m 2 for vegetable farming. The major vegetable products in the study area are tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), carrot (Daucus carota), and green leafy vegetables. The model results indicate a significant positive relationship between vegetable farming and livelihood. The survey results also reveal many constraints (e.g., poor market management and lack of irrigation facilities) and challenges (e.g., haphazard urban growth, price fluctuation, and vegetable diseases). Since vegetable farming has become a major source of livelihood for farmers in the peripheral areas of KV, further interventions should be implemented to strengthen the vegetable sector and sustain this source of livelihood for peri-urban farmers.

No abstract

This paper is a review of policies for disaster risk management in Nepal and discusses the strengths, gaps and constraints of the same. Institutional and Legislative Systems (ILS) approach has been adopted focusing on three aspects: i) legal and regulatory frameworks, ii) policies and programs, and iii) organizational/institutional set-up. This paper concludes that newly endorsed Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act (2017) can be a milestone in disaster management of Nepal not only because it has replaced about 40 years old Natural Calamity (Relief) Act, 1982 but also for the first time, it saw disaster risk management as an process focusing on different stages of disaster management cycles, preparedness, response and rehabilitation and mitigation. The provision of well-structured functional institutional set-up from the centre to local level can have positive outcome in disaster management. However, it overlooks significant aspect, such as the declaration of disaster-prone zones limiting the right of provincial disaster management committee only for recommendation to the Government of Nepal. Most of policies, strategies and legislations focused on some specific disasters such as flood, landslide, earthquake and GLOF/avalanches at national level paying less emphasis to the local level. Even now, most of the policy interventions towards different cycles of disaster risk management have laid emphasis on preparedness and response rather than to rehabilitation and mitigation. The conflicting provisions in Acts such as Water Resource Act (1992) and Building Act (1998) with Local Government Operation Act (2017) have made overlapping of their roles and responsibilities. So, the policy formulation and institutional set-up needs to be complemented by the ability and competence to operationalize the intent of the relevant acts and policies at all levels of government.The Geographical Journal of NepalVol. 11: 1-24, 2018

 Vegetable farming is one of the alternative sources of earning livelihood and becoming important agricultural practices for income generation and employment opportunities. This paper aims to analyze the constraints and opportunities of vegetable farmers in Kirtipur. Altogether 80 farm household survey were conducted in four major areas of Kirtipur. A total of 20 key informant interviews (KII) were also conducted to understand the perception of farm households on commercial vegetable farming. The result shows that around 94% of the total sampled farm households have leasehold farmland that has spread to different settlements of Kirtipur Municipality. Out of total leasehold farmers, 69% have written agreement with the landowner. The result also shows that the farmers cultivate vegetables in an average area of 5.67 ropani (2884.49m2). Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) and mushroom (Agaricus bisporus) are the primary vegetable products, whereas cauliflower (Brassica oleracea) and other green leafy vegetables are mostly cultivated as secondary vegetable products. Dug wells are the major sources of irrigation on vegetable farmland. Out of the total sampled farm households, about 42% of farmers are associated with farmers group and 37% have basic training on vegetable farming. Majority of farmers have savings from vegetable production and marketing. Despite few constraints like price fluctuation (81%) and high middleman margins (71%), vegetable farming in Kirtipur has many opportunities particularly being a major source income and livelihood (93%), self-employment generation (87%) and growing market demand (83%). The opportunities in commercial vegetable farming have continuously attracted the farmers in Kirtipur; however, the existing constraints has deprived farmers from their expected returns. Therefore, this paper recommends to portray possible options to promote opportunities and overcome the existing constraints to retain commercial vegetable farming as a sustainable source for farm households in Kirtipur.

Basin geomorphology is a complete system of landforms and topographic features that play a crucial role in the basin-scale flood risk evaluation. Nepal is a country characterized by several rivers and under the influence of frequent floods. Therefore, identifying flood risk areas is of paramount importance. The East Rapti River, a tributary of the Ganga River, is one of the flood-affected basins, where two major cities are located, making it crucial to assess and mitigate flood risk in this river basin. A morphometric calculation was made based on the Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) 30-m Digital Elevation Model (DEM) in the Geographic Information System (GIS) environment. The watershed, covering 3037.29 km2 of the area has 14 sub-basins (named as basin A up to N), where twenty morphometric parameters were used to identify flash flood potential sub-basins. The resulting flash flood potential maps were categorized into five classes ranging from very low to very high-risk. The result shows that the drainage density, topographic relief, and rainfall intensity have mainly contributed to flash floods in the study area. Hence, flood risk was analyzed pixel-wise based on slope, drainage density, and precipitation. Existing landcover types extracted from the potential risk area indicated that flash flood is more frequent along the major Tribhuvan Rajpath highway. The landcover data shows that human activities are highly concentrated along the west (Eastern part of Bharatpur) and the east (Hetauda) sections. The study concludes that the high human concentrated sub-basin “B” has been categorized as a high flood risk sub-basin; hence, a flood-resilient city planning should be prioritized in the basin.