A Steep Climb to Cleaner Air in South Asia
NASA atmospheric scientists and the SERVIR program are working to help keep communities breathing easy in the Hindu Kush and Himalayan mountain ranges.
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NASA atmospheric scientists and the SERVIR program are working to help keep communities breathing easy in the Hindu Kush and Himalayan mountain ranges.
In the low-lying Terai region of Nepal, fields of emerald green rice sweep across the landscape as far as the eye can see. Villages dot the region, which produces the majority of Nepal’s rice.
|Meryl Kruskopf and Jacob Ramthun, SERVIR Science Coordination Office
Between January 1st and June 16, 2023, Nepal experienced 118% more forest fires than it had in all of 2022.
Nepal’s National Land Cover Monitoring System represents a pivotal achievement and is poised to significantly enhance the country’s climate data and efforts to cut emissions and adapt to climate change. This system is important for assessing and overseeing the ever-changing landscape, which is crucial for the sustainable stewardship of Nepal’s natural resources.
|Jaber Hassan and Sajana Maharjan, SERVIR HKH
Forested areas are important to our planet's health because they take in large amounts of carbon and release oxygen. When forests are removed or degraded, less carbon is taken from the atmosphere, and the result is increased carbon emissions, which may hasten climate change and increase its impact.
Research from a SERVIR Applied Sciences Team and from scientists at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) guided a UNDP-funded project that informed Nepali officials' decision to lower the water level in potentially dangerous Imja Lake.
This collection of case studies is a companion to the SERVIR Service Planning Toolkit. It provides concrete examples from SERVIR’s experience, and that of our partners, applying the Service Planning approach.
SERVIR-HKH has developed the Air Quality Explorer for the HKH using freely available satellite data and the Google Earth Engine platform. The application allows visualization of three atmospheric parameters — nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulphur dioxide (SO2), and Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) — for any chosen period and location.
The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) has been implementing the SERVIR-HKH Initiative — one of five regional hubs of the SERVIR network — in its Regional Member Countries, prioritizing capacity building and science activities in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan.
The Climate Resilient Forest Management System in Nepal enhances decision-making at the district level in Nepal by providing more precise and scientific information on climate change vulnerability and degradation of forest ecosystems.