| dc.description.abstract | he broad objective for this study was to find out the extent of community resilience
to
the landslides in Sindhupalchowk district in the central hilly region of Nepal. The
study was guided by the following specific objectives: to determine the potential
t
hreats of landslides to the communities living in Sindhupalchowk district, to establish
the level of awareness of communities in Sindhupalchowk district on their
vulnerability to landslides, to determine the push and pull factors for residing in
landslide
prone areas and to establish the community resilience strategies to the
landslides in the district.
Theory of reasoned action and planned behaviour were used
to explain the relationship between
the study
variables
.
This study used descriptive research design. It was carried out in Sindhupalchowk
District in Nepal. The population for the study was the communities living in
the
District. The study targeted members of the community and government
administration at the l
ocal level such as
VDC secretaries
and NGO staff. Purposive
sampling technique was used to sample the area chiefs while simple random sampling
technique was used to sample the members of the community in the District. A total
of
6
0 respondents were sampled
for the study
,
out of which
58
respon
ded giving a
response rate of 9
6
.
7
percent
.
Similarly, 3 staff from local NGOs and 3 personnel
from VDC secretaries participated as the key informants in the study.
Questionnaires,
interview schedules and observation c
hecklist were used as instruments for data
collection. The researcher used questionnaires to collect data from members of the
local communities and
VDC secretarie
s while interview schedules to collect data fro
m
representatives from NGOs operating in the ar
ea.
Two f
ocus group discussions w
ere
carried out by members of the local communit
ies
. Quantitative data was analyzed
using descriptive statistics while content analysis technique was used to analyze
qualitative data collected using interview schedules. Sta
tistical Package for Social
Sciences (SPSS) package was used to analyze the quantitative data.
On the potential threats of landslides include: loss of life, health risks such as injuries
during landslide; pollution of water creating scarcity of drinking
water, inaccessibility
to facilities such as health and school after landslide, loss of property and crops,
destruction of roads and soil erosion.
On the awareness of the community members on
their vulnerability to landslides, the study found that 50
perce
nt
of the respondents indicated that the community was highly vulnerable to landslides, 42
percent
of the
respondents indicated that they were moderately vulnerable while 8
percent
indicated
that they were less vulnerable. On the push and pull factors behi
nd residence in
landslide prone areas, the study found that 83.3
percent
of the respondents indicated
that residents cannot afford land in safer areas to a very large extent, 47.2
percent
o
f
the respondents indicated
ethnic reasons to be a push factor to a
very large extent,
while 47.2
percent
of the respondents indicated that landslide disaster being
preventable is a pull factor to a neutral extent. Community resilience strategies
included: construction of safer houses, relocating to safe places, planting
of trees,
construction of fences, use of early warning systems and crop diversification.
The study recommended that the government of Nepal should relocate the affected
population to safer areas. The study finally recommended that another study
to
be
done
on the ways of improving the lives of communities living in other landslide
prone
d
istricts which was not the concern of this study | en_US |
