Disaster vulnerability in Nepal

This article explores Nepal׳s vulnerability from a local perspective. Nepal currently has a disaster management policy and legislative framework yet it is perceived as not trickling down effectively to make significant progress in reducing the impact of disasters at the local level. The article uses the case study method to explore local disaster vulnerability in the Mountain, Hill and Terai regions of Nepal. It concludes that a lack of micro-disaster vulnerability analysis is a problem that remains for effective disaster risk management in Nepal. On the one hand, disaster management practitioners create and enforce disaster management programmes without location-specific knowledge. On the other hand, traditional, less scientific and less disaster risk reduction-centred administrative approaches dominate and push local people into situations where they are vulnerable to disasters.