URBANISATION AND DISASTER RISKS IN THE HIMALAYA

Haphazard urban expansion and poorly planned infrastructure development have increased intensified disaster risks in the geologically fragile Himalaya. Against this backdrop, consolidating interpreting findings from four articles included special issue on “urbanisation risk Himalaya”, paper analyses interrelation between urbanisation rapidly urbanising areas of Nepal The key that we pull together papers are: (1) large-scale construction activities, including real estate boom peri-urban Nepal, increasingly delink traditional communities their land culture; (2) disconnected policies contradicting implementation informal to formal transitions sustained informality deepened Nepal; (3) institutional inertia sustains poor coordination stakeholders relation knowledge sharing, technology resources which hinder proactive management at community level; (4) operational gaps emerge failures delineate authority, responsibility accountability concerned institutions, weak capacity agencies, impeding adoption early warning action system Nepal. Based these findings, conclude while political restructuring decentralisation local governments provided authorities with legitimacy devise policies, enhancing overall capability terms access mobilisation knowledge, technologies is needed reduce