Vol. 8 No. 4 (2021)

This monographic issue is about the disaster risk profile of Nepal. Nepal is a small landlocked country located in the South Asia. It is a Himalayan country and is widely recognized for its extreme mountains. Natural hazards pose the most common and devastating disasters in Nepal. Due to the country’s complex topography, diverse geography, active tectonic plates, and natural environmental factors, Nepal is extremely vulnerable to disaster. The INFORM global risk index for Nepal is 5.2 in the year 2021, thus, placing the country in a high-risk category. Nepal ranks 4th, 11th, and 30th position out of 200 countries in term of vulnerability to climate change, earthquake, and flood respectively. In addition to geophysical and hydro-meteorological conditions, factors such as poor socioeconomic conditions of people, poverty, weak human development index, unplanned and scattered human settlement, environmental pollution, and challenges to mainstream disaster risk reduction in sustainable development and rational planning process further exaggerate the risk of disaster in Nepal. This monographic issue analyzes the disaster risk (hazard, exposure and vulnerability) of Nepal including the trend and loss (in term of death, injury, families affected, and economic loss) of a major disaster that occurred in Nepal for the last 10 years from the year 2011-2020. The data on disaster incidents used in the report are based on the Nepal Ministry of Home Affair’s (focal ministry for disaster risk reduction and management in Nepal) disaster risk reduction portal database from 2011-2020. Based on the DRR portal database, simple numerical calculations were used for quantitative analysis, and subsequently, the information was summarized in form of tables, figures, and graphs. Disaster risk management initiatives, existing disaster risk management institutions and mandate, the current status of the country for sendai framework for disaster risk reduction, issues in the implementation of disaster risk reduction and climate policy, and future challenges and priority areas of Nepal are also explained in this report.