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South Asian cities need to adapt to climate extreme events and work with their inhabitants to find a strategy to move away from the current urban culture of producing and haphazardly disposing large amounts of solid waste. This can be done by reducing the volume of waste produced, organizing dumping behaviour, improving waste collection systems, investing in drainage, replacing riverside and wetland dumping with engineered landfills, and identifying sustainable mechanisms to finance these improvements in waste management.
The project ‘Economic Analysis of Solid Waste Management and Drainage for Climate Resilient Cities in South Asia,’ seeks to generate the knowledge required to improve the resilience of South Asian cities—Bharatpur in Nepal and Sylhet in Bangladesh—to climate change through improved waste management, and help cope with the issues of waterlogging and flooding that are expected to get worse with climate change and urban growth.
The project was funded through a research grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), a Crown Corporation of the Government of Canada.
Project timeline: 2017 – 2020.
This video discusses key findings from the study. The research was carried out between January 2017 and December 2019. The images and footage used in the video were all taken before December 2019.
The following papers were published based on results of this study.
| Title | Journal |
| 1. Adapting to urban flooding: a case of two cities in South Asia. | Water Policy, 22(S1) |
| 2. Improving Municipal Solid Waste Collection Services in developing countries: A case of Nepal. Sustainability | Sustainability, 11(11) |
| 3. Value of cleaner neighborhoods: Application of hedonic price model in low income context | World Development, 131(July 2020) |
| 4. What makes a ban on plastic bags effective? The case of Nepal | Environment and Development Economics, 25(2) |
| 5. Sustainable financing for municipal solid waste management in Nepal | PLOS ONE(20 August 2020) |
| 6. Low-Cost Strategies to Improve Municipal Solid Waste Management in Developing Countries: Experimental Evidence from Nepal | Environ Resource Econ (2022) |
| 7. Household Waste Management and the Role of Gender in Nepal | Environmental Economics in Developing Countries |
The following policy briefs were published as parts of the study
| Title | Published by |
| The economics of solid waste management and drainage: Sustainable approaches to making South Asian cities climate-resilient | Asian Center for Development, Dhaka, Bangladesh |
| फोहोरमैला तथा ढल व्यवस्थापनको अर्थशास्त्र : कसरी हाम्रा शहरहरुलाई जलवायु परिवार्तनप्रति उत्थानशील बनाउन सकिन्छ? | SANDEE |
Water insecurity looms over Sylhet, 12 others (Newagebd.net)
थोरै वर्षाले पनि किन जम्छ शहरमा पानी? थप सामग्री (Himalkhabar.com)
Municipal solid waste management: Discourage Plastic Use (Thehimalayantimes.com)
एक पटक प्रयोगका प्लास्टिक हटाउने अभियान प्रभावहीन (Newskarobar.com)
चुनौतीपूर्ण प्लास्टिकजन्य फोहोर व्यवस्थापन: बहस (Nayapatrikadaily.com)
हामीले जथाभावी फ्याँक्ने प्लाष्टिकका कारण डुबानमा पर्दैछन् शहरहरु (Himalkhabar.com)
The COVID-19 plastic pandemic (Nepalitimes.com)
Kathmandu warns of penalties for no waste segregation. But, researchers want better incentives (onlinekhaber.com)
| Title | Written by | Published by |
| Long Read: Cities and Climate Change – Improving Liveability through Impactful Research in Two Cities in South Asia | Mani Nepal, A.K. Enamul Haque | London School of Economics (LSE) |
The project is led by Mani Nepal (Principal Investigator), Programme Coordinator, SANDEE, ICIMOD. E Somanathan, Professor, Economics and Planning Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, provides technical support and advice. Rajesh Rai, Environmental Economist and Madan Singh Khadayat, Research Associate at SANDEE, oversee the management and mobilization of fieldwork.
Consultants Bishal Bharadwaj and Rishi Ram Kattel work on the project implementation. AK Enamul Haque, Director, Asian Center for Development, coordinates the research work in Sylhet, Bangladesh, while working closely with the partner organizations (Institute of Water Modeling and Sylhet City Corporation) and several other researchers as Co-Principal Investigator.
Cities and climate change research
Mani Nepal addresses graduate students of Duke University, sharing the journey of ‘Cities and Climate change’ project and it’s research findings.
