Rautahat District Research Articles

Women's Empowerment in Building Disaster Resilient Communities

Nepal is one of the 20 most disaster-prone countries in the world. Unequal access to and control over resources by women also add to Nepal's vulnerability. Rautahat district faces many hazards every year, such as floods, fire, epidemics, and cold waves. Floods displace more than 756 families temporarily each year. Women are considered the most vulnerable group in disaster situations due to several factors, such as illiteracy, poverty, lack of awareness, social taboos, domestic and other violence, lack of access to and control over resources, low influence and decision-making capacity and so on. Disaster risk reduction, as a multi-hazard approach, is directly linked to community resiliency. It covers all aspects of development identified by local communities. With the objective of empowering women for leadership skills in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA), via the Nepal Red Cross Society, we established six Women Empowerment Centers (WEC) in the Village Development Committees (VDCs). The project has equipped them with several training inputs. WEC members have had several tangible achievements by mobilizing community people in the sector of disaster management and by coordinating with other agencies for the technical expertise they need.

Isolation and Characterization of Arsenic Resistant Pseudomonas Stutzeri ASP3 for its Potential in Arsenic Resistance and Removal

Inorganic arsenic both arsenite As (III) and arsenate As (V) constitute the highest toxicological risk associated with arsenic in drinking water. Novel methods are in demand for its removal from water, especially in rural areas. For this purpose, the potential of different microbes in arsenic resistance and removal from water has gained interests worldwide. This study investigates the arsenic resistance and removal capacity of a bacterial strain isolated from arsenic enriched water of Rautahat district in Nepal. The concentration of arsenic was by hydride generation atomic absorption spectrophotometer. The isolated bacterium showed high resistance to sodium arsenate up to 4,680.15 mg/l and sodium arsenite up to 649.55 mg/l. The bacterium also conferred multiple heavy metal resistance to zinc chloride (136.28 mg/l), copper sulphate (249.68 mg/l), mercuric chloride (5.43 mg/l) and silver nitrate (3.39 mg/l). The growth rate calculated in the presence of 129.01 mg/l of sodium arsenite was 0.35 h-1 with doubling time of 1.96 h. The strain showed growth in the range of 25–45 °C (optimum 30-35 °C), pH 6 – 9 (optimum 7.5-8.5) and tolerated up to 10% of NaCl. The PCR-based 16S rDNA sequence analysis revealed that the isolated As resistant bacterium is a close relative to P. stutzeri (99%) with 30 hits. The bacterium removed 82.97 % of As (V) and 49.4% of As (III) from culture medium amended with 200 mg/l sodium arsenate and 74.92 mg/l of sodium arsenite respectively.

Modeling and study of the mechanism of mobilization of arsenic contamination in the groundwater of Nepal in South Asia

A study on arsenic (As) contamination in the groundwater of the Gaur Municipality, Rautahat district, Nepal was undertaken. We have designed a model, by backward stepwise regression analysis, to predict As concentration (R2 = 67 %) when information on some covariates such as nitrate, bicarbonate, and total iron (Fe) is available. The model was applied to Nepal groundwater and verified for Bangladesh groundwater. This multivariate model may be used to predict As concentration in given anions and cations. The analysis of variance test showed that the model designed is statistically significant (p < 0.001). Among all the covariates, Fe content showed the strongest positive correlation with As. The multivariate model for predicting the As from the existing three explanatory variables (NO3, HCO3, and Fe) for Nepal groundwater is found as: \( {\hat{\text{A}}\text{s}} = 19.349 - 0.221\;{\text{NO}}_{3} - 0.041\; {\text{HCO}}_{3} + 3.274.50 \; {\text{Fe with }}R^{2} = 67\;\% , \) where As in μg/L, Nitrate bicarbonate, and Fe in mg/L. The release of As from the soil was found according to the Fe reduction hypothesis. The As concentration varied from 1 to 62 μg/L in the groundwater sample (n = 50) of both the private and public shallow tube-wells. Among analyzed sample units, one of the tube-well’s As concentration exceeded 50 μg/L, 18 were between 10 and 50 μg/L, and the rest (31) were below 10 μg/L.

Isolation and characterization of aerobic culturable arsenic-resistant bacteria from surfacewater and groundwater of Rautahat District, Nepal

Arsenic (As) contamination of groundwater is a serious Environmental Health Management issue of drinking water sources especially in Terai region of Nepal. Many studies have reported that due to natural abundance of arsenic in the environment, various bacteria have developed different resistance mechanisms for arsenic compound. In this study, the culturable arsenic-resistant bacteria indigenous to surfacewater as well as groundwater from Rautahat District of Nepal were randomly isolated by standard plate count method on the basis of viable growth on plate count agar amended with arsenate ranging from 0, 0.5, 10, 40, 80 to 160 milligram per liter (mg/l). With respect to the morphological and biochemical tests, nine morphologically distinct potent arsenate tolerant bacteria showed relatedness with Micrococcus varians, Micrococcus roseus, Micrococcus luteus, Pseudomonas maltophilia, Pseudomonas sp., Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Bacillus cereus, Bacillus smithii 1 and Bacillus smithii 2. The isolates were capable of tolerating more than 1000 mg/l of arsenate and 749 mg/l of arsenite. Likewise, bioaccumulation capability was highest with M. roseus (85.61%) and the least with B. smithii (47.88%) indicating the potential of the organisms in arsenic resistance and most probably in bioremediation.

The Prevalence of Blindness and Cataract Surgery in Rautahat District, Nepal

Purpose: The Gaur Eye Hospital, which provides eye care services to the people in Rautahat and adjacent districts, completed 9 years of operation in 2006. Over 14,000 cataract surgeries were performed during this period. This study aimed to ascertain the impact of the hospital services by estimating the prevalence of blindness, visual impairment and cataract surgical coverage among the older adult population of the Rautahat district.Methods: People aged 50 years and older were enrolled in this study that used a stratified cluster design. Subjects in 32 randomly selected clusters were identified through door-to-door visits, presenting and corrected visual acuities measurement, and clinical examination by ophthalmologists were conducted at a centrally located site.Results: Of the 5,533 identified subjects, 85.3% were examined. Blindness was defined as presenting with visual acuity < 6/60 in both eyes. Blindness was found in 17.4% (95% Confidence Interval: 15.1 to 19.7); however, 55.6% of individuals examined had vision < 6/18 in one or both eyes. Cataracts were the principal cause of blindness in 82.1%, and were associated with elder age, illiteracy and female gender. Surgical coverage was found to be 37.3%.Conclusion: The findings suggest that despite 9 years of hospital and community eye care services the prevalence of blindness in this area is still challengingly high and the cataract surgical coverage unacceptably low. Community outreach awareness programs and accessibility for the Nepali cataract blind to the hospital need to be upgraded.

Socio-economic Status of Arsenicosis Symptomatic Patients in Santpur, Rautahat, Nepal

Introduction Arsenic contamination in drinking water has been one of the epidemics of the global concern including Bangladesh, India and Nepal. Objective The general objective of the study is to find out the prevalence of arsenicosis symptomatic patients and their socio-economic status in Santpur VDC, Rautahat District, Nepal. Methods The tools and techniques applied were the Questionnaires, Direct Observation, Interview, Arsenic Field Test Kit (ENPHO), Arsine Generator Method and Statistical Tools (c2-test at 95% confidence level). 124 people were examined from 36 risk households who used to drink water from 42 tube wells (some household had more than one tube well). Results The overall prevalence of arsenicosis symptomatic patients among the risk households of Santpur was found to be 15.3 percent (19 out of 124) with 84.21 percent Melanosis in trunk and 15.79 percent keratosis in sole and palm. The highest occurence was 22.8 percent (13 out of 57, c2=4.553, P 0.05) in the poor, 51.72 percent (15 out of 29, c2=152.792, P<0.05) in agricultural workers. All positive patients (19 out of 19, 100.0%) were above 40 years of age and had been drinking arsenic contaminated water for 1.5-25 years. Positive correlation (R2=0.9741) was found between ENPHO arsenic test kit and laboratory method. Conclusion Poor, illiterate and agricultural worker group people are found to be more exposed with arsenic. So the study recommends launching the long-term management strategy in the region which includes uplifting the socio-economic status of Terai people.

Evaluating collaborative management of forest from Rangapur CFM, Rautahat

Collaborative Forest Management (CFM) is the youngest forestry program implemented so far in Nepal focusing on sustainable management of the Nepal’s productive Terai forest. It has been defined as working partnership between the key stakeholders in the management of the given forest. CFM aims to manage the Terai forest through involvement of the local people in decision making, implementation, benefit sharing and monitoring along with local government bodies (DDC, VDC) and national forest authority (DFO). Rangapur is one of the three pilot CFM sites comprising 1472 ha forest with 22 VDCs and a Municipality as command-area in Rautahat district of Nepal. Despite several promising impacts, some weaknesses and threats of CFM have also been realized within its two years of implementation in Rangapur. This paper assesses and evaluates major achievements, strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities of CFM hoping useful towards sustainability. &#x0D; &#x0D; Key words: Sustainability, partnership, stakeholders, Rangapur, pilot &#x0D; &#x0D; Banko Janakari: A journal of forestry information for Nepal Vol.17(1) 2007 pp.32-38