Groundwater Quality: Nepal

Nepal is a landlocked country in southern Asia, between China and India, with a total land area of 140,800 square kilometres. Topographic variations are extreme and the terrain has a general southward slope. The topography ranges from rugged high Himalaya in the north, to the central hill region, to the lower-lying Siwalik Range (south-central) and down to the ‘terai’ or flat river plain in the south. Elevations range from greater than 8000 m (Mount Everest range) on the north border with China (Tibet; Figure 1) to 70 m (Kanchan Kalan, terai region) in the south. Nepal has eight of the ten highest mountains in the world.