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International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 96 (2023) 103924
Available online 4 August 2023
2212-4209/© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
The urban political ecology of ‘haphazard urbanisation’ and
disaster risk creation in the Kathmandu valley, Nepal
Dilli Prasad Poudel
a
,
*
, Sophie Blackburn
b
, Rojani Manandhar
a
, Binod Adhikari
a
,
Jonathan Ensor
c
, Anushiya Shrestha
a
, Netra Prasad Timsina
a
a
Southasia Institute of Advanced Studies, Nepal
b
University of Reading, UK
c
Stockholm Environment Institute, Department of Environment and Geography, University of York, UK
ARTICLE INFO
Keywords:
Haphazard urbanisation
Urban political ecology
Vulnerability
Unequal disaster risk creation
Tomorrow’s cities
Kathmandu
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the impact of rapid urbanisation on the production of unequal disaster risk in
Khokana, peri-urban town in the Kathmandu Valley (KV), Nepal. It brings together scholarships in
disaster risk creation and urban political ecology (UPE), asking: (1) what are the roots of Kho-
kana’s specic urbanisation trajectory; (2) how is this trajectory altering geographies of hazard
risks in Khokana; and (3) how is this risk unevenly distributed between social groups. The data
reveal overlapping forms of risk and precarity affecting residents’ (long-standing and migrants)
everyday lives, in ways that disproportionately impact already-disadvantaged and marginalised
groups. These unequal risk geographies are related to the specic forms and processes of urban
growth occurring in Khokana, fuelled by three powerful, interconnected pressures: neoliberal
capitalist expansion, internal migration, and a strong developmental state. We characterise the
resulting form of urbanisation as ‘haphazard’: a patchwork of planned and unplanned de-
velopments, with inadequate attention to hazard risk, livelihood stability and essential services.
The paper advances understanding of the place- and historically-specic ways that hazard risk
intersects with social, political and economic forces to produce disaster risk in rapidly-urbanising
centres. We extend calls for more situated UPE analysis and call for greater, more granular
attention to forms of haphazard urbanisation and their uneven risk-producing qualities. We
conclude an urgent need to reimagine urban development as a political and economic project, and
for future urban planning to pay deliberate and deliberative attention to risk factors, both in KV
and in other rapidly urbanising areas of the global South.
1. Introduction
This paper draws on extensive eld research in Khokana, a rapidly-growing peri-urban town in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. In
August 2021, while the research team were travelling for a meeting with members of the Khokana Ward Disaster Management
Committee (WDMC),
1
our car broke down in muddy water. We consulted with nearby residents on whether this surface water appears
frequently, and they reected that it has become a regular phenomenon over the past decade or so. On later visits to Khokana in the
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: dilli.poudel@hotmail.com (D.P. Poudel), s.e.blackburn@reading.ac.uk (S. Blackburn), rojani.manandhar@gmail.com (R. Manandhar),
geobinod@gmail.com (B. Adhikari), jon.ensor@york.ac.uk (J. Ensor), anushiya.shr18@gmail.com (A. Shrestha), nptimsina@gmail.com (N.P. Timsina).
1
The lowest-tier disaster management committee in nepal, at the community level.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijdrr
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.103924
Received 15 June 2022; Received in revised form 11 June 2023; Accepted 31 July 2023
International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 96 (2023) 103924
2
monsoon season, we witnessed landslides triggered by the increased outow of the raj kulo
2
(royal canal - the local irrigation canal),
another landslide near residential areas, and were told that both oods and landslides have become a frequent feature close to the
Bagmati River which anks Khokana. Residents further recounted that inundation in temporary settlements (tahara basti), where
mostly migrant labourers reside, was a particular problem and was affecting those groups recurrently. Consistently, these observations
and local narratives paint a picture of shifting geographies of hazard risk, and of uneven vulnerability, in and around Khokana.
This paper probes this shifting geography of risk in two ways, through an urban political ecology (UPE) lens. First, it asks why
hazard exposure and vulnerability in this region is increasing over time. And second, it examines the drivers of unevenness and
inequity in how these hazards are experienced. The answers lie in the particular forms and patterns of urbanisation occurring in
Khokana, which are grounded in its specic historical and policy context. Although hazard risk is often portrayed as ‘natural’ (i.e.
inevitable, irrespective of social processes, and depoliticised) in policy and popular discourse, the wider and multi-scale political and
economic activities associated with urbanisation are equally implicated in the (re)production of disaster risk [1]. After Rios [2]; in this
paper, we examine the intertwining of neoliberal urbanisation, associated socio-spatial and cultural changes, and shifting hazard risks,
demonstrating how powerful interests are shaping urban trajectories in ways increase the hazard exposure and/or vulnerability of
already-marginalised groups (such as migrant labourers). We draw on UPE and the political ecology of disasters to explain how
processes of urban change are inscribing unequal power relations materially on the landscape in Khokana, through uneven geogra-
phies of exposure and vulnerability production (after [3,4].
We illustrate this in the case of Khokana, where large-scale development projects driven by national economic and geopolitical
interests are transforming the physical landscape at an accelerated rate. Kathmandu Valley (KV) comprises Kathmandu, Lalitpur and
Bhaktapur districts; with a total population of approximately 3 million [5], it is one of the top ten fastest urbanising areas in the world
[6]. The valley has experienced rapid in-migration as a result of past development interventions (e.g. a new ring road) [7], political
unrest and conict
3
[8,9], displacement following the 2015 earthquake, and expanding employment opportunities [10,11]. As a result,
the conversion of agricultural land into built-up areas has skyrocketed in the valley over the last three decades [12,13], and has rapidly
expanded into the agricultural terraces of peri-urban areas. The built-up area of KV increased from 38 sq. km in 1990 to 119 sq. km in
2012 [14], expanding by 412% and converting 31% of agricultural land in the last three decades [13].
These historic and current trajectories have important implications for geographies of disaster, with urbanisation linked to growing
exposure and vulnerability to a range of hazards [11–13,15–18,106]. In Khokana, the most signicant hazards (as identied from prior
research, local reports and research observations) are ooding, surface inundation, re, earthquakes and landslides.
4
Data indicate
that built-up areas in the 100-years return period for the KV oodplains will increase from 38 km
2
to 83 km
2
by 2050, and built-up
areas in liquefaction-susceptible zones will expand by 13 km
2
–47 km
2
over the same period [12]. This paper extends empirical ac-
counts of how rapid and unplanned urbanisation is driving multi-hazard risk in the Kathmandu valley, by emphasising how these
evolving risks are affecting communities unevenly and unequally – specically, in ways that disproportionately impact low-wage
migrant labourers and communities who rank lowest within the traditional caste system found in Khokana’s Newari settlements.
Through stakeholder interviews and local accounts, the paper explores the concurrent emergence of new socio-spatial patterns (e.g.
new settlements, market centres, industrial areas, and commercial farming), the conversion of ecologies for material benets (e.g. land-use
changes), and a shifting geography of hazard risks in Khokana. Khokana is distinctive for its deep cultural heritage (particularly the
Newari) and also for the dynamic ux of its social and cultural make-up as a result of migration ows. The paper examines how urban
change in Khokana is generating layers of intersecting contestation that are bound up in this place-specic cultural history: contestations
over land and infrastructure, overlain with contestation over cultural claims to key heritage sites and routeways. The paper argues that
these contestations constitute a form of social-political precarity that is bound up in and inseparable from other forms of everyday risk.
The paper brings into conversation scholarships in UPE and disaster risk creation [4,19,111], to thicken understandings of the
urbanisation-risk nexus in rapidly growing urban and peri-urban areas of the global South or majority world.
5
We do this by developing
the concept of ‘haphazard urbanisation’ – a term which captures a particular form and process of urban growth that emerges at the
conuence of a strong developmental state, capitalist neoliberal forces, and place-specic local culture, norms and practices. By
conducting UPE analysis of urban disaster risk creation in Kathmandu, the paper expands the empirical base for a more “situated”
urban political ecology as called for by Lawhon et al. [21].
In the context of Nepal, we characterise Kathmandu Valley’s development trajectory as ‘haphazard’ because it lacks risk-sensitive
and pro-poor urban planning, resulting in new exposure to hazards (for people and infrastructure) and heightened vulnerabilities
(indicated, for example, by overcrowding, poor access to essential services, and lack of compliance with risk-sensitive building
regulation) [22]. Although the Nepali government began a process of planned urbanisation in Kathmandu in the 1960s, rapid
in-migration and rising land prices have contributed to extensive unplanned construction at the same time. The paper demonstrates
how disconnects between planned development projects, pre-existing hazard risk, unplanned or unregulated urban sprawl, and local
socio-cultural dynamics are resulting in overlapping – and unequal – forms of precarity and risk in Khokana.
2
Throughout the paper we have used local and nepali language to describe particular placenames and phenomena that do not easily translate to english, and to
enhance a sense of place. The meaning of these terms is indicated in text or footnotes.
3
From 1996 to 2006, Nepal experienced maoist insurgency and civil unrest (see Lawati and Pahari, [9]).
4
From here, the term ‘hazards’ or ‘physical hazards’ are used to encapsulate this group of hazards affecting Khokana. Note that river ooding is distinguished
from surface inundation caused by extreme rainfall and lack of proper drainage.
5
We propose that such urbanism may be particularly prevalent in – but not limited to – the majority world, owing to the rapidity of growth and conuent
inuences of colonial/neo-colonial legacies and global capitalism [20,107,110]. Whilst nepal was not formerly colonised, it has been subject to the political and
economic inuences of colonial and neo-colonial forces in south asia and the himalaya [108, 109].
D.P. Poudel et al.
International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 96 (2023) 103924
3
This UPE analysis of ‘haphazard urbanisation’ advances conceptualisation of disaster risk creation in urban settings, by high-
lighting not only the role of political economy and gaps in regulatory implementation (already well documented in disaster risk
reduction literature, including in Nepal e.g. [23], but also cultural and social dynamics at the neighbourhood scale. The paper
demonstrates that disaster risk creation through urban transformations is uneven and unequal, cross-cut and compounded by multiple
overlapping forms of precarity (physical, social, cultural, economic, etc). They are also fundamentally place-specic, contoured by the
interaction of historical context, development discourse and current social-political-economic ows. The paper supports ndings by
Rumbach and Nemeth [111] that disaster risk creation, in its unevenness and inequities, has social justice implications.
Further, the paper has direct policy relevance. Its historical analysis identies how powerful elite interests (central state de-
partments, private investors) underpin current trajectories of urban growth and transformation in and around Khokana, the outcomes
of which benet some yet exclude and increase the vulnerability of others. Moving forwards, the paper calls for an alternative
approach to urban planning: one that is pro-poor, risk-sensitive, and is both deliberate (i.e. risk reduction an integrated part of urban
planning), and deliberative (i.e. inclusive).
The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 introduces urban political ecology as our theoretical lens on the interconnection
between urbanisation and disaster risk production. This is followed by a review of historic and current urbanisation trends and the
urban planning tradition in Kathmandu in Section 3, and an overview of data collection in Section 4. In Section 5, we will show how
haphazard urbanisation is affecting the peri-urban geography and people of Khokana, shaping uneven risks to future disasters. In
Section 6, we present a discussion focusing on unequal risk creation. Finally, Section 7 concludes this paper, summarising key con-
tributions and policy recommendations. The paper draws on data collected as part of UKRI GCRF-funded project Tomorrow’s Cities
(see also [24,25]), which seeks to reduce disaster risk for the poor in rapidly urbanising cities of the global South.
2. Urban political ecology and disaster risk creation
Disasters are not ‘natural’ but intrinsically social-political phenomena [26]. They are a combined symptom of physical hazards and
vulnerability, meaning socially-constructed sensitivity to hazard, and differential capacity to avoid, adapt, absorb, or control risk [27].
Power dynamics, cultural context and social relations result in geographies of risk that are locally specic, experienced diversely and
distributed unevenly [26]. These diverse intersecting forces mean risk is inherently uncertain and complex [28]. Understanding risk
and its (re)production demands attention to socio-economic and political environments [1], and to the decision-making norms and
discourses through which vulnerability is produced and reproduced [29].
There is growing attention to ‘disaster risk creation’ as a constellation of active processes through which risk is produced and
reproduced, both materially and as an immanent product of power, social and political relations. Disaster risk creation as a conceptual
lens “focuses attention more squarely on human agency in the production and distribution of risk” [111], and on the governance
decisions that ‘‘increase, or fail to decrease vulnerability’’ [19]. The lens speaks directly to questions of accountability and re-
sponsibility in the root causes of risk [4] and to the social justice implications of this [111].
Aligning with this emergent scholarship, our paper examines how social, economic, political and cultural dynamics associated with rapid
urbanisation are actively shaping and exacerbating geographies of risk and vulnerability in the context of Nepal. Disaster risk creation takes
particularly complex forms in urban contexts, owing to cities’ dynamic mesh of diverse cultures, powerful economic interests, diverse/
competing knowledges and technologies, and complex governance arrangements [3]. Marxist human geographers argue that the material
and social developments, cultural changes, market forces and the expansion of built-up areas associated with urbanisation are outcomes of
political economic systems and historical processes of space production [21,30]. The production of space is socio-political [31] and cultural
[32], reecting histories of human interactions [33] ). The production of urban space incurs social-ecological transformations which are
similarly and simultaneously shaped by the politics of class, gender, ethnicity, discourses and other power struggles [30].
In this paper, we adopt an urban political ecology (UPE) lens to investigate the historical processes giving rise to particular forms of
urban change in the Kathmandu Valley, and in turn how these forms of urbanisation are affecting geographies of disaster risk. As an
analytical lens, political ecology highlights the “choreographies of power” [34] that shape, and are shaped by, social-ecological
processes, emphasising how unequal social-political relations are manifest in the landscape – often by analysing forms of social
control over natural resources (e.g. [35–37]. Political ecology critically assesses how socio-political relations (individual, group or
organisation) and individuals’ positionalities (e.g. class, gender, access to resources, social networks, agency) shape actors’ action-
s/practices and are brought into a position to stake claims, to have a voice, and to be recognisable by authorities [38] while accessing,
accumulating and materialising/metabolising natural resources. Access to, control over and transformation of natural resource-
s/landscapes is informed, inuenced and appropriated differently by various actors and their inclination to certain knowledge, hence
the conversion of space is shaped by the interests of actors which is not independent of the existing social structures and their dif-
ferential socio-political positionalities. This paper’s case site, Khokana, is transforming socially and physically as a dynamic mosaic of
co-dwelling indigenous Newar and migrant communities, and economically with the co-existence of farmers (subsistence and com-
mercial), factory owners, labours, and large-scale development projects, real estate and market activities. These co-dwellers have
different socio-economic positionalities, vulnerabilities and capacities [39].
As a sub-discipline of political ecology, UPE analyses the dialectic relationship between urbanisation and ecological transformation
[40]. UPE critically analyses how processes of capital accumulation
6
shape ows of people, resources and capital and the
6
Capital accumulation is a neoliberal force which appropriate and organize a city/place in favour of wealthy investors, builders and elites by inuencing policy
making and modifying land use, culture and social formation (Lawhon et al., [21]).
D.P. Poudel et al.
International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 96 (2023) 103924
4
commodication of nature. To Heynen and Robbins [41]; neoliberal urbanism as a process is negotiated, dynamic, and environmental
destructive. Swyngedouw [42] uses urban metabolism as a lens to unpack ows and processes of exchange, transformation, circu-
lation, and appropriation in urban settings. UPE emphasises how power operates in urban settings and how infrastructures and ur-
banisation shaped by power relations reinforce capital relations and capital accumulation [21]. These analyses often focus on
particular urban artifacts, such as the governance and/or privatisation of water management systems (e.g. [43–45], to open questions
about equity and justice in how those systems are governed and accessed. Lawhon et al. [21 p.500] explain:
UPE is concerned with the processes of the urbanisation of nature, or the social, cultural, and political relations through which
material and biophysical entities become transformed in the making of often unequal cities. It contributes a historicised and
politicised understanding of urban ecologies.
In this paper, we examine the exacerbation and uneven production of disaster risk as a product of interconnected urban politics and
socioecological transformation. In the case of Khokana and KV, we nd that haphazard urbanisation reects an accelerated trajectory
of neoliberal capitalism
7
[46,47]; see also [48]. UPE helps us examine how nature has become haphazardly urbanised historically, and
how neoliberal policy-making has shaped risk in an agricultural peri-urban society. We analyse how new hazards and vulnerabilities
are being built into Khokana’s landscape at an accelerated rate through planned and unplanned urban construction. After [49]; the
paper’s methodological and analytical approach pays attention to the everyday messiness of urban life, and by extension, the pro-
duction of disaster risk. The paper’s empirical focus speaks to calls for a broadened conceptualisation and evidence base of urbani-
sation politics in the global South (e.g. [50–53]. This “more situated” urban political ecology, Lawhon et al. argue, “creates the
possibility for a broader range of urban experiences to inform theory on how urban environments are shaped, politicized and con-
tested” [21]). We propose further research on disaster risk creation in emergent urbanisms and peri-urban areas as an extension to
these calls.
3. Urbanisation trends and ows in the Kathmandu Valley and Khokana
This section examines how the intertwining of political and cultural history, neoliberal economic policy, state-led infrastructure
planning, and associated ows of people and capital, have culminated in place-specic trajectories and forms of urbanisation in the
Kathmandu Valley, and in Khokana specically. It ends with an outline of eight emergent socio-spatial patterns that arise from these
interconnected trajectories, informing the subsequent analysis of emergent and uneven geographies of disaster risk creation in Khokana.
3.1. Historical drivers of urban expansion in Kathmandu Valley: a strong developmental state, neoliberal expansion, and internal migration
Despite the mix of communities and cultures living in Kathmandu Valley (KV) today, historically the area has been strongly
associated with Newari culture. Indeed, until the late 1700s, KV was solely inhabited by Newar
8
communities [54] [2007]. However,
following the defeat of the Malla King of Kathmandu by the King of Gorkha (western Nepal) in 1778, namely Prithivi Narayan Shah,
there began an inux non-Newar groups from outside the valley, such as Brahman and Kshetri groups, and those who migrated with
the Gorkha King as armies and priests. This migration ow continued from the 18th to mid-20th century, contributing to a cultural
diversication of the area – although at this time there was minimal impact on the valley’s urban morphology. Even into the early
1970s, when there were around 600,000 inhabitants in KV, more than half remained in smaller rural settlements in the periphery,
depending fully on agricultural practices [55].
Urban growth began to accelerate after the Government of Nepal began a programme of systematic urban planning in the 1960s,
starting with the formulation of the Town Development Committee Act, 1963 [56]. This act provided a legal basis to prepare the rst
physical development plan for KV in 1969, which followed a multi-nucleated regional growth strategy linking dispersed settlements by
constructing road networks [57]. Subsequently, the Town Development Implementation Act in 1972 enacted the Kathmandu Valley
Town Development Plan, of which a 28-km-long ring road was the major feature. Urbanisation in KV – consisting of Kathmandu,
Lalitpur and Bhaktapur districts – accelerated in the mid-1970s after completion of the ring-road, with an accelerated ow of capital
and labour alongside (see also [10,47,58]. The construction of the ring road increased the migration of people out of Kathmandu city
centre, with people in the city core starting to buy land and settle in more towards lower-density, more peripheral areas (interview with
urban planners, 2020). Proximity to Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) (constructed in 1949
9
) helped facilitate the growing
tourism industry and other associated businesses across KV.
Subsequently, in 1976, the Kathmandu Valley Development Committee categorised the valley into three zones: A (city core), B (city
fringe), and C (planned settlements). Movement within and between these zones was facilitated by the construction of major trunk or
arterial roads, with routes going north (Budhanilakantha), east (Nagarkot), west (Thankot) and south (Godawari) of the valley corners, in
addition to the construction of the Bishnumati-Bagmati river corridor road and other feeder roads during the 1990s. These corridors have
further expanded the city areas within the ring road, substantially increasing the mobility and connectivity of people and businesses.
Although various development plans have contributed to planned urban development in the KV, the Kathmandu Valley Urban
7
“Neoliberal capitalism is a political ideology that advocates private property, the privatisation of social resources, the exibilisation of regulatory frameworks
that might hinder free market values” [48].
8
Although the term “newar” is actually a geographical concept, denoting anyone who lived in the valley (irrespective of his/her ethnic origin), it rst came to be
used to denote a distinct cultural identity during the 17th century [54] [2007] and continues to be used in that way today.
9
Although the formal beginning of aviation in Nepal occurred in 1949, The Tribhuvan International Airport, which used to call Goucharan airport, was inau-
gurated in 15 June 1955 by the King Mahendra.
D.P. Poudel et al.
International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 96 (2023) 103924
5
Development Plans and Programs [59], prepared in 1991, was particularly inuential in shaping urban expansion towards peripheral
areas. This plan made various strategic recommendations related to land use, environment, infrastructure, nancial investments, and
institutional aspects of the urban development in the valley [10,59–61]. This policy encouraged private sector real-estate development
in KV, motivated by a dual desire to stimulate the KV economy and reduce population pressures in Kathmandu city-core. The urban
expansion was focused on greater Kathmandu, extending beyond the ring road and the municipal boundaries.
This policy was a signicant factor in a KV real estate boom which began in the mid-1990s, which further accelerated urban growth
in KV and over time has contributed to deep transformations in the valley’s formerly agricultural landscape. Land speculation spiked
through individual brokers and companies buying portions of farm land, dividing and selling the smaller plots to lower/middle-class
migrants (see also [47,58]. These brokers also commercialised housing plots by constructing access roads linking major trunk/arterial
roads. By 2000, real estate became one of the most lucrative forms of investment in KV [62]. This was additionally fuelled by a
proliferation of nancial institutions together with an excess liquidity situation in the past [62]. According to Nepal Land and Housing
Developers’ Association
10
, the current land price in KV has risen by 300% since 2003, and is one of the key drivers of land use change.
The increasing number of middle-class migrants in the KV demand modern facilities such as housing sub-divisions and colonies with
modern amenities (e.g. private parking, grocery stores, restaurants, etc.), which expanded towards the peripheries. Throughout the
2000s, the built-up areas continued to expand further along the major roads that link the outskirts of the ve municipalities (Kath-
mandu, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur, Sanothimi, and Kirtipur).
The National Urban Policy 2007 [63] aimed to achieve balanced urban development and improve the livelihood of the residents by
creating a land-use plan to manage urban growth and ensure a clean, safe and prosperous urban environment (clause 4.1.2). However,
it also promoted private investment in infrastructural development (clause 4.1.6), further fuelling neoliberal urban developments that
did not necessarily align with the aspirational values of the policy. Furthermore, the policy is silent on the risks originating from or
exacerbated by new infrastructural construction. As a result, unfortunately, KV’s urban planning policies have largely failed to address
multiple urban risks arising from unplanned urban sprawl, including trafc congestion, poor water supply, pollution, and unplanned
housing in the longer-term ([60]; IUCN, 1999 as cited in [56]). Furthermore, the focus of the National Urban Development Strategy
2017 is also to encourage economic activities in the peripheries [64], again creating space for capital accumulation for neoliberal
economic activities and encouraging migration for job opportunities.
The sum effect of state-led infrastructural developments and the neoliberal growth they facilitated (both directly and indirectly),
has been large-scale conversion from open agricultural land to enclosed, built-up urban space in KV. The availability of housing stock
and increased desirability of KV among middle-class city dwellers, as well as expanded job opportunities for low-skill or working class
laborers, have together fuelled a signicant movement of people out of the city centre. Meanwhile, other drivers of internal migration
are also very signicant. The decade-long civil unrest that began in the mid-1990s generated a huge inux of internally displaced
people to the valley [8]; see also [9]. In total, it is believed that more than 500,000 people were displaced during the Maoist insurgency
period [11], most of them resettled in the periphery of KV [58,65]. Additional pressures arose following the 2015 earthquake
11
(see
[66], which also caused mass displacement.
Through the combination of government policy, neoliberal urban expansion, and various migration pressures, KV saw 117%
growth in built-up areas and increased economic activities during the period 1999 to 2009 [13]. In 2011, the valley population
consisted 46% inter-district migrants, 74% of which were born in rural areas [14]. With 10% of the total population occupying less
than 1% of the total land of the country [67], the valley accommodates 24% of the nation’s urban population [14], hosts 40% of urban
manufacturing, 25% of urban non-farm employment [14], and accounts for 31% of the total GDP [62].
After the federalisation of Nepal in 2008, several rural areas which were formerly part of the then lowest administrative unit of the
Nepal government called Village Development Committees (VDCs) were converted into municipalities, which are considered urban in
Nepal.
12
Khokana was one of them, merging with neighbouring VDCs to become Ward no. 21 of Lalitpur Metropolitan City (LMC) in
March 9, 2017 – although Khokana itself retains many rural characteristics even today. Over the last two decades, the proportion of
mixed residential and commercial areas in KV has increased by 524%, and that of residential areas has increased by 331% [14]. The
majority of this expansion occurred in the periphery of Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur municipal areas. Planned development
area in the southern part of Lalitpur (i.e. Bhainsepati/Shainbu Housing Area, see below), bordering Khokana, is an example of such
expansion. The implementation of housing projects in Bhainsepati, as we analyse below, has a direct inuence on changing
socio-spatial patterns and the production of risks in Khokana.
3.2. Khokana culture and society
Our analysis now turns more specically to our study site, Khokana: a medieval Newari town covering a total area of 3.2 sq. km,
located in Ward no. 21 of Lalitpur Metropolitan City (LMC) (see Map 1), on the southern part of the Kathmandu valley. Khokana
borders the Bagmati river
13
in the west and south, Chovar gorge (the only outlet of KV’s rivers) in the north, Bungamati (a Newari
town) in the south and Sainbu-Bhainsepati (the area’s rst planned settlement) in the east. The 2021 census records 1235 households
in Khokana (with a population of males 2646, females 2628), however this gure excludes undocumented migrants. According to key
10
Further information available at: https://www.nlhda.org.np/[accessed 30.01.23].
11
The 2015 earthquake with 7.8 (April) and 7.3 (May) on Richter scale killed about 9000 people, injured 22,300, destroyed 600,000 houses, and damaged 288,00
houses in Nepal [66].
12
See https://www.mofaga.gov.np/[accessed 08.06.23].
13
The Bagmati river ows out of the Kathmandu valley through the outlet in the Chobhar gorges and then from Khokana.
D.P. Poudel et al.
International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 96 (2023) 103924
6
Map 1. Location map of the study area, Khokana
D.P. Poudel et al.
International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 96 (2023) 103924
7
informants, migrants make up to 30% of the present Khokana population, and the total population may be closer to 1500 households.
14
Within the long-standing Newari population in Khokana, the main groups are Maharjan and Dangols, both indigenous Newari
(Jyapu or farmers) communities who moved several centuries ago from core Kathmandu to Khokana (south) and Sano Khokana or
Chwekhona (north) set in the hillocks. A characteristic of Newari culture is the Guthi system, a traditional form of social organization
which informs the role played by different groups (higher and lower caste) in the performance of various social and religious practices
within the community. Like all Newari communities of KV, each and every Newari family within Khokana is associated with at least
one of the two main types of Guthis, namely Jatra (festival) Guthi, and Malami Guthi (members facilitating funeral practice). Both Guthis
are divided into several sub-Guthis (for instance, Jatra Guthi is divided into Ta-Guthi, Sana-Guthi and Ja-Guthi). By the virtue of their
lineage, each household is responsible for performing specic tasks – such as organising various festivals, or managing funeral rituals.
Guthis are gender exclusive, meaning only male members of a family can be a member of the Guthi.
Alongside the main groups outlined above, there are also a number of more socio-economically marginalised Newari groups,
including Kapali (musicians), Kushle (swipers), Napit (nail cutters) and Shahi/Kasai (butchers). These lower-caste groups traditionally
serve the Dangol and Maharjan (considered higher caste communities) during festivals, and otherwise are mostly employed as laborers
on Dangol and Maharjans’ land. Making up approximately 4% of the total population of Khokana (2011 census), these groups generally
reside on the edges of the core settlements. Although these lower-caste groups play important supporting roles in the community, they
are not considered part of the Guthi system and generally experience a marginalised position within Newari society.
As outlined in the previous section, the expansion of industrial and other commercial activity (including commercial agriculture) across
KV has also attracted an increased number of migrant workers, including low-skill/low-wage laborers and some factory owners. These
groups are generally considered ‘outsiders’ from traditional Newari society, lack social ties and political connections locally and often have
reduced access to spaces of decision-making (e.g. not being invited to participatory governance activities). Migrant workers typically live in
previously cultivated areas, prone to inundation, either renting land, living in temporary shelters or in newly constructed houses.
3.3. Why Khokana for planned urban developments?
Khokana occupies a highly strategic location, and has attracted the attention of the Government of Nepal for intensive development
for several reasons. First, being the rst town to be electried in 1911, it was not only the major junction for valley dwellers visiting out
of the valley and across the Bagmati river in the past, but it was also an international trade-route juncture to enter KV during the Rana
regimes (1846–1951). The present emergence of large-scale developmental and constructional projects in and around Khokana is
inuenced by this history, owing to the trans-border trade route. Second, it is the nearest location to the southern plain (or Tarai)
region of Nepal, which borders India, offering possibilities to connect two densely populated areas of Nepal (i.e. KV and Tarai, and
beyond the Tarai, across the border to India). Third, it has a residual huge chunk of open space in the form of agricultural land, which is
changing rapidly due to the effect of urbanisation and where the government has plans to develop a ‘smart city’ in the future.
The above factors mean the central government has identied Khokana as the focus for several strategic, large scale and multi-
billion rupees construction projects, which are being funded by the federal government, international organisations such as the
Asian Development Bank (ADB) and private business companies. The ongoing major development projects of Khokana include: (i) a
72.5 km long “fast track” road project to connect KV with Tarai [68], (ii) the smart cities project [69], as part of plans to develop smart
cities in all four corners of KV [70], (iii) the 72 km outer ring road project to connect peri-urban settlements and planned smart cities
[71], and (iv) the high-tension transmission line project to full the increasing demand of power supply in urbanising KV [72]. Except
the outer ring road, all of these projects pass via Khokana and use its land. The effects of these intensive development projects are felt in
the local Newari livelihoods and culture [73], and are generating new socio-spatial patterns of urban growth or change that are altering
exposure to hazards. These shifts to date remain unexplored, and are a focus of this paper.
Governmental interventions for urban expansion in the area were informed by the adoption of neoliberal policies in the early
1990s. In 1991, the government commissioned Bhainsepati-Sainbu as a new housing area in the vicinity of Khokana, aiming to develop
it as a nucleated urban site [10]. Completed in 2002, this is a popular residential area for Kathmandu’s political and business elites.
Presently, the government is constructing new residential buildings for various parliamentarians and ministers in this area. Our re-
spondents recalled, that until three decades back, the farmers of Khokana owned the land in Sainbu Housing and primarily cultivated
maize and millet in the area. By early 2000s, however, the land of this area was completely occupied by the housing companies and
land brokers, displacing locals. The trend of buying land for high-end real estate and housing is, increasingly, spilling over to Khokana
which has experienced an unprecedented level of urban growth in the last two decades.
3.4. Socio-spatial changes in and around Khokana since 2000
This section examines the specic form that urban change is taking in Khokana, informing the analysis of uneven/unequal exposure
and vulnerability to hazards in subsequent sections.
The government land pooling policy in the 1990s stimulated a rapid acceleration of city expansion in KV, with concomitant phases
of land speculation and a real estate boom. As a result, Khokana has experienced three decades of continuous urban sprawl, with
rampant conversion of productive farmland into built-up areas, and the commercialisation of cultural and historical sites as tourism
has expanded. We observed eight sites of socio-spatial change (these are listed in Fig. 1, items a – h) arising from this period of rapid
change (including two old settlements, Khokana and Sano Khokana). Each of these is addressed in-text below. Key trends overall
include shifts in market centres, residential areas, commercial farms and factories, and modernising traditional settlements.
14
The government has not published all the population census 2021 data yet, so we had to rely on key informants.
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Compared to northern Khokana (or Chwekhona), southern Khokana (a) is bigger in size and population density (90%), with the
17th century Rudrayani temple in the middle of the four traditional settlements (namely Thalachhi, Kwelachhi, Ta-Jhya and Baha-
liune) and numerous other cultural/communal spaces. Historically, Khokana lay on the medieval Indian-Tibetan trade route ascending
from India to the Bagmati river, then entered Patan or Lalitpur city through Khokana [74]. While the core settlements of southern
Khokana have remained relatively intact, maintaining their cultural identity as homogenous traditional societies, the periphery areas
are on the verge of rapid transformation. In particular, there are rapidly increasing built-up areas around the Khokana bus park in
southern Khokana, and an in-migration of wage labourers in agriculture, construction activities and light manufacturing factories (see
Fig. 1). This growth has accelerated the construction of new residential buildings and temporary houses known as taharas. Tahara
literally refers to a temporary house, built from zinc-coated steel, bamboo, or iron which are built in farmland and scattered in and
around Khokana. Many taharas were constructed by the local victims of the 2015 earthquake. In addition to new constructions, these
houses are now occupied/rented by people with low economic status (particularly, low-wage migrant laborers), but are not equivalent
to informal settlements in the sense they are (generally) built on legitimately acquired land (Photo 1). The expansion of tahara res-
idential areas is reected in the growing number of migrant students (60%) in a local school.
The rate of inward migration has been higher, however, in northern Khokana (e) (i.e. Chwekhona or Sano Khokana), triggered by
multiple factors including its at geography, proximity to Bhainsepati (a local market centre with high-class residents), and to ongoing
large scale development projects such as the fast track road and high tension transmission line, thereby increasing the value and rate of land
transaction in the area. Northern Khokana is rapidly transforming into a more heterogenous (socially and economically) urban society.
Once anked by agricultural elds, Tar-lan (c), a historical route extended from Bhainsepati to the southern part of Khokana (see
Fig. 1c), and the crossroad market (b) settlements (a newly emerged market centre between Bhainsepati and northern Khokana,
locally called Bhewakwe) have experienced an increased pace and expanse of urban sprawl. A migrant resident of the crossroad set-
tlement explained, “the vast open and reasonable land value/rents and the low population density attract the factory investors and the
commercial farmers in Khokana. Also, proximity to the market centres at the city cores [i.e. Bhainsepati, Kathmandu and Lalitpur] makes
Khokana a fascinating site for operating busiesses". Plans for the fast track road are particularly signicant in encouraging new industries
in this area, since it will reduce travel distance from Kathmandu to Tarai, and subsequently, to India, and hence increase the market
possibilities. These factors have contributed to several small-scale manufacturing industries
15
becoming established in Khokana,
Fig. 1. Emerging socio-spatial patterns in Khokana.
15
These include, for example, manufacturing of clothes, shoes, ironwork, tobacco, soap, raincoat, hoarding boards, furniture, building materials, plastic & plastic
bags, sacks, etc.
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mostly operated on rented land. These are located primarily along the road from the crossroad towards northern Khokana, while others
sit along the Tar-lan to southern Khokana.
Associated with these new/expanded economic activities, numerous tahara settlements (h) are visibly mushrooming in between
the mosaic of terraced farmlands, nearby existing settlements and the industrial area (d). New restaurants and hotels have also been
established, transforming the land between southern and northern Khokana into lively commercial spaces. Dauragal and Ku-desh
16
(g), located in the southwest part of the Doh-phat
17
area (i.e. agricultural eld) (see Fig. 1), are also transforming with an increasing
number of taharas housing labourers in commercial vegetable farming and animal husbandry. A local teacher explained that the major
“pull” factor for these activities are affordable land rent, open public land for grassing (i.e. Ku-desh), easy access to water (near Bagmati
river) and markets (city centres in Kathmandu and Lalitpur).
Finally, Shikali (f) – a hillock with a historic temple atop, located on the bank of Bagmati river – is rapidly emerging as a touristic
hotspot with the ow of visitors for recreational and commercial purposes, especially during weekends and holidays. This location is
increasingly a preferred site for video makers and cyclists, yet also holds historic and cultural signicance as an important holy place
for religious pilgrimage. Various hotels and restaurants have opened along the route from northern Khokana to Shikali, with sub-
stantial increase in the land trading and speculation around the Shikali area during the last few years. These factors have contributed to
the conversion of agricultural land close to Shikali and the interruption of traditional pilgrimage routes (further outlined below),
contributing to changes in the appearances and values of Shikali from a cultural site to a commercial space.
4. Data collection and local engagement
Data were collected over three phases of eldwork, using a mix of qualitative and semi-ethnographic methods: household and key
stakeholder interviews; focus group discussions; participatory hazard mapping; workshops; and observational transect walks. Full
consent and the right to leave the research process at any time were discussed and agreed with participants prior to data collection.
Phase 1 commenced in Khokana in July 2019, and focused on understanding the changing socio-spatial patterns of urbanising
Khokana (as summarised above). We conducted interviews with community respondents via household interviews, and expert
stakeholder interviews with urban planners, migration experts, and disaster management authorities in Kathmandu city and the
Kathmandu Valley Development Authority. In this phase of eldwork, we adopted accidental and snowball sampling at the community
level and used our network while selecting experts and institutional heads at the city core.
Subsequently, Phase 2 was conducted in Khokana in 2020. It focused on understanding local geographies of vulnerability and risk
creation through socio-economic hierarchies, differential and unequal capacity of community members to respond to risks, and haphazard
urbanisation. This phase built on our engagements during the rst phase, which aided us in selecting and interviewing differently posi-
tioned households such as households from socially marginalised communities, migrant groups, commercial farmers and factory owners.
Phase 3, in 2021, adopted group and co-learning methods to further explore community experiences of risk and resilience (see [75,
Photo 1. View from Northern Khokana (foreground) to Southern Khokana (background). New industrial activities (factories) and tahara settlements are visible in the
area in between. [Photo: December 21, 2021].
16
Ku-desh is an archaeological site of Khokana where the rst settlers of the present Khokana and Chwekhona (i.e. northern Khokana) used to live. Douragal is the
lowest part in Doh-phat – the agriculture land (see the next footnote).
17
Doh-phat is a vast and extended agriculture land between Khokana (south) and Chwekhokna/Sano Khokana (north) where rampant constructional activities are
going on.
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76]. We deployed focus group discussions (FGDs) and workshops with a diverse community group and representatives from the Ward
and Ward Disaster Management Committee (WDMC). The researchers sought a sample of community participants that reected the
cultural, economic and social diversity of Khokana, with strong representation from marginalised groups. The goal was not only to
collect information but also share ndings and seek local verication of these. Through a series of workshops with the WDMC, and
building on Phase 2, we identied ve sub-groups who represent the differential socio-economic positionalities of Khokana, from
which to seek disaggregated views on risk production. The sub-groups were: women and marginalised households,
18
migrants,
19
wealthy households
20
, the people from the high-risk Ta-jhya settlement (particularly exposed to re risk), and the people from
northern Khokana (called Sano Khokana or Chwekhona).
21
Re-formed in 2021, the WDMC was deemed a suitable advisor given the
committee is made up of community members and itself prioritises inclusive representation in its membership. FGDs were held with
each of these groups separately, with the objective to explore their experience and perceptions on how disasters were caused by rapidly
urbanising Khokana, decreasing agricultural activities, increasing incidence of hazards, ongoing constructional activities, and
development projects. We used a common interview guide for these discussions.
Building on this disaggregated FGD data, we organised a Participatory Hazard Mapping (PHM) workshop in August 2021. In
consultation with WDMC and the members of the above mentioned ve disaggregated groups, we selected key informants from
disaggregated groups, victims of hazards (i.e. farmers), and other local stakeholders. The PHM exercise aimed to locate existing,
observed and experienced hazards in a sketched boundary map of Khokana provided by the researchers. The PHM provides our base
document from which to analyse the shifting geography of hazards and disasters in Khokana (see Fig. 2). It identies and illustrates the
history of hazards in the area, increasing hazards due to modernisation and neoliberal development, and new risk-prone communities
(both local and migrants). Additionally, we conducted several observational transect walks during periods of eldwork, to observe new
social patterns, identify and witness active hazards, conduct ground verication of hazard sites identied by participants, and conduct
informal ad hoc discussions with people we met along the way. We also held a community visioning session, exploring how community
members imagine what ‘future Khokana’ will look like in the years ahead. The ndings from this workshop are beyond the scope of this
paper and are not presented in detail, however they provided added contextual detail on local priorities and values and hence are listed
in Table 1.
Data were collected in Nepali. After each visit and interview, we wrote detailed eldnotes to capture initial reections. Interviews
and focus groups were later translated and transcribed in English for analysis. All data were analysed thematically using standard
coding techniques. During write-up, we sought consistently to select representative voices for quotation [113], reecting the differ-
ential experiences of diverse groups.
Table 1
Data collection, July 2019 – March 2022.
Dataset
number
Individual interviews Number of
interviews
Gender of
respondents
1 Interview (household and key informants) 22 16 M +6 F
2 Interview with Ward ofcials 3 2 M +1 F
3 Interview with municipality ofcials 3 3 M
4 Expert stakeholder interviews (planners, and Disaster Risk Reduction and migration experts
including the head of Kathmandu Valley Development Authority and Ministry of Home Affaires
ex-Disaster Management head)
8 8 M
Total 36 29 M þ7 F
Dataset
number
Group methods Number of group
sessions
Gender of
respondents
5 Focus Group Discussion with community and local stakeholders (drawn from a mix of high-
income households, marginalised households, migrants, households from Ta-Jhya tole/settlement
and northern Khokana, WDMC members)
6 32 M +14 F
6 Workshop with WDMC 5 47 M +19 F
7 Participatory Hazard Mapping (PHM) 1 6 M +1 F
8 Visioning Workshop (VW) 1 21 M +6 F
Total 13 106 M þ40 F
18
Since Kushle, Kapali, Napit and Shahi communities within Newari society have low socio-economic and political positionalities in Khokana and who also
considered as low caste community in the past, we have categorised them collectively as a marginalised group. Women are also included here and clearly there are
intersections between these forms of marginality and exclusion. Unfortunately, a gendered analysis was beyond the scope of the paper – this warrants further
investigation.
19
This category includes low-wage laborers, tenant farmers, and factory owners.
20
Wealthy households are dened as local Newar families with more than 5 ropani (0.25 ha) of agricultural land.
21
Being the smallest (10% of the total population) and separately settled ancient town, and to have different perspectives, we categorised the northern Khokana
separately throughout our engagements in Khokana. This was also recommended by the WDMC.
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5. Forms of haphazard urbanisation and their impacts on disaster risk creation in Khokana
The UNDP published in 2010 [112] that the unplanned expansion of cities to accommodate rapid population growth, combined
with inappropriate land-use planning and the failure of urban authorities to regulate building standards and policies, contributes to the
increased vulnerability of urban dwellers. The new Constitution of Nepal 2015 and, subsequently, the Disaster Risk Reduction and
Management Act 2017, ostensibly called for greater attention to disaster risk management in the aftermath of the 2015 earthquake,
making provision for a range of new risk governance structures – however there are questions over the adequacy of their imple-
mentation [23]. In practice, urban planning still too often does not adequately consider the differentiated and locally specic expe-
riences of vulnerability as a core element of decision-making – demonstrated as follows in the case of Khokana.
Khokana is exposed to a range of physical hazards including earthquakes, re, inundation, ooding and landslides. According to
interview respondents and participatory hazard mapping (PHM) sessions, whilst earthquake and re only pose occasional threats to
Khokana, incidences of ooding, surface inundation and landslide are recurrent during the monsoon season. These events are reported
to have increased in tandem with the increased rate of urban expansion, particularly the government’s planned developments in
Sainbu-Bhainsepati which pushed urban sprawl in the direction of Khokana. Earlier, Section 3 highlighted the powerful state and
private sector forces driving urban expansion and densication in Khokana. The following sections outline the manifest forms and
characteristics of haphazard urbanisation arising in Khokana, and their role in shifting geographies of disaster exposure and
vulnerability.
5.1. Urban densication
The rst risk-producing feature of Khokana’s rapid expansion is the densication of its existing settlements. Densication in
already congested settlements with narrow alleys and streets has exacerbated its susceptibility to re hazards in particular. The area
has experienced three signicant re events in the past [39]. A female participant in a focus group discussion recalled the incidence of
re in her house 25 years ago as follows: “due to the narrow alleys, it was impossible to reach for the re brigade, and the community put out
the re using the water stored in large earthen pots (called Ghyampo) and from the nearby well”. As a preparedness measure or immediate
response mechanism, the ward has installed 200 m long water-hose pipes in a local pond (called De-pukhu) in 2019, and arranged
emergency kits in two places. However, considering the rapidity of densication in both existing and new settlements in Khokana,
locals believed these arrangements are not adequate to tackle future hazards. According to the WDMC member representing Nepal
Police noted: “these trainings and drill exercises that happened once in a while, are not enough and effective during the actual events which
usually demands timely and effective rescue, relief and assistance. Lack of trained human resources to monitor and use them in case of
emergency usually backre the response procedure”. The data suggest that the densication of existing and new Khokana settlements –
including tahara settlers – needs to be closely monitored and regulated to ensure adequate communication and access for emergency
response and evacuation.
5.2. Undue attention to known hazard risks
Our stakeholder and community interviews, participatory hazard maps and transect walks collectively indicate that development
interventions planned by the Government of Nepal and private investors are not sufciently sensitive to – or, are being implemented in
spite of – known, existing hazard risks. There are various examples of this (Fig. 2).
First is the expansion of construction and commercial activities close to the Shikali Hillock: a vibrant and emerging hub for local
tourism, located at the edge of the Bagmati river. Water levels in the river soar during the monsoon, and the adjacent areas have
experienced continuous bank erosion and landslide issues for more than three decades. A tree plantation program conducted around 25
years ago went some way to slow the rate of erosion and landslide events on the west and north side. However, according to a ward
representative, the total area of Shikali has nevertheless shrunk from 4.78 ha to 4.17 ha. Consequently, whilst once located in the
middle of the hillock, the Shikali temple has now shifted along the edges, mostly eastwards. Furthermore, a crack of approximately
60m (running east-west, around 10 m north of Shikali temple), induced by the 2015 earthquake (see Fig. 2, c1), has aggravated the
landslide risk. Discussions with the Ward chair revealed that the monsoon-induced ooding and landslides along the Bagmati river
present an annual threat to culturally valuable crematorium sites belonging to different caste groups, including the crematorium for
infants, which are located on the edges of the Bagmati river on the south-western sides of the Shikali hillock (see Fig. 4, G1 and G2).
Despite these known risks, construction and commercial tourism activities continue apace around Shikali (Photo 2), threatening
not only the Shikali temple itself but also the sociocultural values associated with it. An article titled “Our land is us and we are our
land” (as spoken by a Khokana activist) clearly highlights the close emotional and cultural connection between traditional Khokana
society and the landscape. This close connection is threatened by the expanse of the ward targeted with development projects [77]. As
a marginalised male from the Kushle community shared, “the present alignment of the fast-track ran through our cremation ground and if it
does not consider this, we will be alienated culturally. Also, the increasing land speculation increases the land encroachment of these crema-
torium sites and add more risk to our culture and tradition”. In a workshop (March 2022), another respondent added, “the high-tension
transmission line that passes through northern Khokana will not only have compelled farmers to leave a swath of 25 m of their land on its line
[NB: farmers are not allowed to sell land but can cultivate], but also affects the aesthetics of local culture and scenic beauty of place”. Locals
reported that they suggested the government should take a forest route instead, which the government ofcials refused on the grounds
it will impact on wildlife and natural habitats. One male informant responded passionately with, “so wildlife and their habitat should not
be threatened but our lives can be”. These data indicate a growing feeling of disconnection and alienation for Newar communities, and
the felt precariousness of preserving cultural life.
In terms of the production of risk through new construction, one key site is the new bus park proposed as part of the fast-track
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project (called “zero-point”) (Photo 3), on the Khudol plain (see Fig. 2, A1; and Photo 3). Located north of Shikali hillock, this site is also
at ongoing risk of inundation from the Bagmati river. According to our informants, the area has experienced two signicant ood
events over the past 60 years. However, as Khudol has previously been used solely as a farmland, to date these inundations have not
been linked to human casualties. If plans for the bus park go ahead, this represents a direct form of new risk creation – exposing new
infrastructure and passengers to ood hazard. Furthermore, the area is increasingly being rented by tahara settlers, as well as com-
mercial farmers, which disproportionately increases the risk to the lives and livelihood of those socio-economically vulnerable groups
in the future.
A second known hazard that is being exacerbated through haphazard urban expansion is landslides in the Narayangal area (see
Fig. 2, B2), close to the existing bus park in southern Khokana. This area experienced a landslide event in July 2021, close to the
Fig. 2. Participatory hazard mapping (PHM) of Khokana.
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Buddhist religious site of Jitapur Gandhakuti Vihar. Narayangal has seen signicant housing construction (formal and informal) in
recent years, and is also adjacent to the proposed Khokana ring road. Some preventive measures have been taken, including a gabion
wall constructed alongside the drainage stream running from the bus park area. Nevertheless, the risk of recurring landslide is
considerable since the gabion wall is located far from Jitapur Gandhakuti Vihar and the nearby settlements. Respondents reported
landslides being triggered between the gabion wall and settlements where new houses are being constructed and the local ring road
passes through – again, indicating a case of planned (the ring road) and unplanned (tahara housing) urban expansion in an area of
known hazard risk.
The Shahanlo/Bhagupa area (see Fig. 2, B1) on the south-western side of Khokana, is at risk of both landslides and ooding – the
authors observed this directly during eld visits. Landslides have been exacerbated by the replacement of an open canal with cemented
pipes to manage the drainage system of Khokana (to be discharged into Bagmati river later). The construction of these pipes has not
only destroyed the traditional route De-lan
22
(that connects to festival route near Dauragal), making mobility difcult during the
monsoon, but also interrupted local farmers from using the canal water for irrigation which restricts the productivity of cultivation
Photo 2. View of the Shikali Temple hilltop, dropping to the Bagmati river valley behind. [Photo: December 21, 2021].
Photo 3. Location of the proposed end of the fast-track road and new bus park (“zero point”), on the banks of the Bagmati River. [Photo: November 2, 2022].
22
De-means god in Newari language and lan refers to path/route, meaning the path of God. It is the historical route (horse trail) to travel to settlements across the
Bagmati river.
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during dry periods. Traditionally, the canal provided irrigation and manure for the farmers. The implications of the canal’s con-
cretisation for hazard risk were summarised by a female farmer, concerned with shared how her fertile area is facing a dual-threat
during the monsoon: “rstly, the overow of the irrigation through cemented drainage canal is ooding my fertile land, and, secondly, the
raging Bagmati river downstream is continuously eroding the banks and triggering the landslides”. Respondents estimated that land owned by
10 households in the Shahanlo/Bhagupa area, representing more than 1.2 ha, has already been eroded by the continuously shifting
Bagmati river.
Haphazard concretisation, construction and encroachments are similarly causing inundation of agricultural land and inundation
close to the royal canal (i.e. raj kulo) and its tributaries. This is particularly aggravated in places where the canals have been damaged
during construction work. The resultant run-off and ooding is disproportionately affecting poor households living in the tahara
settlements. As shared by one migrant farmer, “we stay awake whole night in fear that the runoff/ood might enter our shelters and farms,
and destroy our crops and livestock”.
Compounding the physical precarity experienced as a result of ood and landslide risks, and the socio-cultural precarity of at-risk
heritage sites, repeated inundation of land has also sparked conicts between migrant groups, long-standing residents and the local
government – constituting a form of socio-political precarity. This is felt most keenly by groups who occupy the most marginal or
hazardous land and also hold less power and inuence over urban planning decision-making – in Khokana, those being migrant
labourers and marginalised Newari groups. During a workshop (October 2021), a migrant voiced his concerns over local ood risk but
was met with consternation from the ward ofcial. The ofcial alleged him saying, “how can you blame the ward for inundation if you buy
the land near the royal canal and its tributaries?”, indicating a gap in perceived accountability for hazard risk. Conict has also arisen
where locals (whose lands are generally located at lower elevation than the land rented by migrants), during monsoon, alleged the
migrant farmers are channelling excess water towards their land causing ooding and destroying their crops. A male migrant renting
land in terraced farming shared, “we cannot defend or resist the locals as they come in a group and threaten us”. These contestations speak
to underlying relations of power and marginalisation which, whilst pre-existing, are being surfaced and heightened through fear of
exposure to hazards. These contestations speak to the diverse and differentiated ways that haphazard urbanisation feeds compound
environmental and social risks.
5.3. Lack of regulatory enforcement
In addition to re, oods and landslides, Khokana is also exposed to earthquakes [78]. According to the ward ofce records, the
2015 Gorkha earthquake killed nine people and destroyed almost 80% of the buildings in Khokana. Many reconstructions
post-earthquake are still ongoing. Unfortunately, despite the existence of detailed regulatory structures [79,80], many reconstructions
do not comply with the National Building Code and/or ignore the ward committee’s efforts to maintain its traditional facades. This is
because, according to PHM participants, many households have limited budget and congested spaces in which to reconstruct their
houses according to the building code norms. Some also experienced difculties in accessing the housing reconstruction grants
23
due to
a lack of land ownership documents. As a result, many are simply rebuilding as per their individual preferences and household budget
limitations, in addition to spreading tahara settlements – which clearly has implications for Khokana’s earthquake resistance in the
future. As articulated by one elderly female respondent, “we survived the 2015 earthquake but we are not sure if we will survive another one
due to the nature of the buildings being built. Although the buildings were totally damaged in 2015, the human casualties were very few but if the
reinforced cement concrete (RCC) structures collapse, it will claim more lives with more physical and economic losses”.
Lack of hazard-sensitive regulatory enforcement also applies to road construction. The combination of planned developments and
urban sprawl across Khokana has signicantly increased the road networks, however many have not been properly nished or black-
topped. As a result, inundation is an ongoing issue for earthen roads including in the emerging crossroad settlements, the adjoining Tar-
lan and the road of northern Khokana to Shikali, as well as on recently opened tracks including the Khokana ring road. Particularly
during the monsoon but also on periodic rainy days, episodes of road blockade due to ooding causes mobility challenges and impacts
on local livelihoods. This was highlighted on the rst day of the Visioning Workshop (December 2021), when it had rained heavily all
night, and two participants called to inform us that, “either pick us up or we won’t attend the workshop”.
5.4. Compound risks: precarious livelihoods, land tenure and housing
As highlighted in Section 3 and above, rising land values and interlocking pressures for urban expansion (state-led infrastructural
developments, displacement as a result of conict and the 2015 earthquake, migration from Kathmandu city core, and property price
spikes prompted by land pooling policies) have resulted in rapid conversion of agricultural land to built-up areas and residential plots.
Local perceptions are that private and elite interests, rather than local priorities and needs, are the driving force for this. Commenting
on this, one migrant commented: “the land use plan of Khokana is being made by land brokers but not by the local government or the
planners”. In a focus group, one male respondent whose 0.203 ha (4 ropani) of land has been already been acquired by developers,
whispered that “our land is being ooded by the development projects rather than the water”. The pain of a felt loss of control, combined
with growing land occupation by real estate and development projects, resonated in his voice. Participants estimated that to date some
5.09 ha of land has been acquired by development projects, real estate companies, factory owners and renters.
Additional pressure for land conversion came following the 2015 earthquake, which compelled many victims to sell agricultural
land to raise funds to rebuild their houses. Whilst helping to reconstruction, it has reduced local resilience in the case of future di-
sasters. One female respondent expressed, “in case the future earthquake destroyed our house again, we won’t have any other resources to
23
Further information on the National Reconstruction Authority and its activities here: http://www.nra.gov.np/en [accessed 30.01.23].
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International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 96 (2023) 103924
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sell and build back again as the land has already been sold”. Loss of households’ agricultural land to private investors was found to be a
particular threat to women and elderly people, who traditionally are the most engaged with agricultural practices in Khokana.
Owing to rising land values, many locals have chosen to rent formerly agricultural land as a lucrative alternative to labour-intensive
farming activities. One male interviewee shared, “in the past, the community would think of people as lazy or stupid if the land is left
abandoned - but now people think it is stupid those who are doing traditional farming”. As a result, there has been a decline in traditional
farming practices, including collective agriculture and shared land ownership, and an associated increase in livelihood and food
insecurity in this once self-sustaining village. Whilst multiple land ownership remains prevalent in Khokana,
24
it has caused added
complexity when it comes to land rental. There have been rising incidences of confrontation between tenant factory owners and
commercial farmers, with tenants facing unexpected problems such as threats from unknown landlords.
The unequal effects of land conversion are felt more keenly still by those with no land ownership to begin with – in particular,
migrants living in tahara settlements. The migrant households – predominantly working as agricultural labourers – near Dauragal (see
Fig. 2), a low-lying agricultural area near the Ku-desh archaeological site, are at high risk of inundation; yet its proximity to the highly
fertile Doh-phat agricultural area has led to the rapid expansion of tahara settlements. The area is one of the main sites of food pro-
duction serving the growing population nearby, especially to Sainbu-Bhainsepati. Being low-lying, Dauragal functions as a store and
outlet to drain water and wastewater from southern Khokana to the Bagmati river. During the monsoon, runoff from the terraced elds
as well as the drainage or tributary canals of upstream settlements (i.e. southern Khokana and adjoined tahara settlements) turns this
lowest part into a swampy area (see Fig. 2, A3). In this area, migrants’ livelihood and housing precarity is compounded by high
exposure to ood/inundation hazard – together making this group at disproportionately high risk.
6. Discussion: uneven and unequal disaster risk creation
In Section 5, we analysed how shifting socio-spatial patterns, shaped by wider political economic processes, are altering local
exposure to disaster risk. This section unpacks the consequences of these changes for an increasingly unequal geography of disaster risk
in Khokana.
The above sections have illustrated the form and impact of haphazard urbanisation on evolving ows and patterns of human
settlement, local economy, land use and socio-cultural practices in Khokana. We emphasise the ongoing impact of planned and un-
planned land conversion, gentrication, and large-scale development projects on accelerated urban growth and change, and the
combined drivers of top-down state-led developments, neoliberal capitalism, and population displacement and migration which un-
derpin these. The concentration of large-scale development and infrastructure projects in and around Khokana constitute an accel-
erated metabolism of nature and the re-making of socioecological space [21,42]. In this respect our ndings support Madden’s [103]
argument that neoliberal urbanisation is a disaster waiting to happen. Further, we nd the acceleration of urbanisation in the Kath-
mandu Valley (KV) is occurring without proper, systematic, risk-sensitive land use plans. This nding is in-line with Bhattaral and
Conway [22] who found urban vulnerabilities of KV are the result of poor planning.
We characterise the forms of urbanisation in Khokana as ‘haphazard’, meaning it is ongoing in a patchwork of planned and un-
planned land conversions, without foresight and due attention as to the ramications for geographies of risk and social equity. Ur-
banisation processes have deeply political undertones, speaking to the complex power struggles by a range of actors that make up the
urban landscape [81]. The central Nepali government’s powerful drive toward large-scale, cross-boundary infrastructure projects
speaks to an underlying ‘urbanisation as development’ discourse, accordant with a dominant view of urbanisation as “the best way to
sustainable development” (see [82]). In our collective global moment of “planetary urbanisation” [83], urbanisation often (if not
always) is uncritically framed as synonymous with “development” (see [82]). In Khokana, the government continues to push several
large development projects, despite these being located in known hazardous areas. These projects are prioritised over other forms of
development (e.g. progressive social policy, access to essential services), indicating a discursive disconnect between disaster risk and
urban development – perhaps due to an assumption that risks will reduce over time, or conversely that nothing can be done to avoid
them. Either way, further research is warranted on the values, knowledges and political subjectivities underpinning KV’s current
urbanisation trajectory.
Haphazard urbanisation in and around Khokana was found to be particularly risky for low-caste Newar communities and migrant
labourers, particularly those living in tahara settlements, who are already marginalised due to compound social, economic and po-
litical inequalities. For these groups, emergent and worsening exposure to hazards is exacerbating the existing forms of vulnerability
and precarity they face. Although Khokana is a historical and cultural place, and from the outside may appear to be relatively socially
homogenous in terms of its Newari heritage, it is socio-politically divided. Lower caste groups within Newar communities (see section
3.2) tend to depend on either communal land or land owned by high-income and higher caste Newar households. These low-caste
groups are at risk of losing their agriculture-based livelihood practices, as surging commercial value of land and real estate busi-
ness booming in the neoliberal urban development have tempted landowners to sell the land, thereby stripping low-caste Newars of
their livelihood. Poor access to education, landlessness, limited political capital and entrenched caste-based hierarchies make these
groups largely dependent on wage labour and shared-cropping for their livelihoods, with limited adaptive capacity. These factors
heighten low-caste Newars’ vulnerability, at a time their hazard exposure is simultaneously increasing.
24
Traditionally, Newar farmers (called Jyapu) do not divide land/property among family members/brothers; instead they divide rooms/oors of houses and farm
the land collectively. This has occurred for generations, however multiple land ownership is becoming increasingly complicated in modern times (e.g. accessing
government facilities, and bank loans). Recently, the ward government has started managing this problem so that if a family comes to them with a decision of land
division, the ward government will provide an ownership document.
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International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 96 (2023) 103924
16
Migrant labourers, meanwhile, also experience high social-economic vulnerability – and additionally occupy some of the most
hazard-exposed areas of Khokana and surrounding areas (i.e. the cheapest land). Rural-urban migration ows, driven variously by
conict, unemployment and post-disaster displacement, give rise to large migrant populations in many urban centres in Nepal that are
frequently at risk [84]. The social landscape of KV is a caste/ethnic mosaic due to this high concentration of migrants [85]. However, in
Khokana, migrants often live in the poorest conditions: in temporary shelters (taharas) lacking basic services, in housing they rent or
constructed themselves, located close to irrigation canals or on agricultural land. Both of these places are prone to inundation during
the annual monsoons, hence migrant labourers are not only living in precarious geographies but also their economic activities (many
afliated to agriculture) are highly precarious.
Compounding this, many migrants lack access to proper channels of representation and accountability via the local political system
– a challenge shared by other marginalised groups worldwide [86]. Since they are beyond the constituency of the local government and
cannot participate and vote in the election, they are often considered as secondary citizens (illustrated, for example, during the Covid
pandemic when they were poorly supported and advised to go ‘to their own place’). Lack of political voice amongst marginalised
groups compounds vulnerability because the needs of those most at-risk are not represented [87,88]. Poor migrant groups also tend to
be weakly embedded within local social structures (see [89]). Social capital is closely linked to vulnerability (e.g. [90]) and disaster
recovery [91]. Hence the migrants’ social marginalisation compounds the multiple other forms of marginalisation and precarity they
face: economic, physical, and political.
Understanding compound and complex form of risks and precarity is vital for equity and justice in local policy making [92–96],
particularly in the sense of more complex interplay between land, livelihood, identity, culture, and vulnerability and insecurity – as
seen in the threats to cultural sites (e.g. Shikali) and farming land that combine to undermine income, sense of place and perceived
resilience, and arise from inundation/ooding, land market expansion and speculation, and state development projects. It is this
combination of materiality and meaning that creates lived, everyday patterns of risk and disadvantage.
This paper demonstrates the huge richness of understanding that comes from unpacking risk geographies in granular detail at the
scale of households and neighbourhoods. Such understanding can only come through qualitative, participatory data collection with the
goal of surfacing subjective local values, experiences and voices. This is required alongside, and integrated with, more traditional
physicalist, quantitative forms of hazard mapping and modelling – which, whilst also vital, tend to extrapolate data points (particularly
in regions that are research funding-poor) and fail to capture the richness, diversity and complexity of human experience and local
knowledges [97–100]. Without scrutinising the roots of unequal access to resources, precarious livelihoods and political represen-
tation, such as those facing marginalised and migrants households of Khokana, local risk management is in danger of dealing with
symptoms rather than underlying causes of disaster risks [101].
This analysis of haphazard urbanisation in KV further demonstrates that in spite of the region’s known hazardousness – and despite
the existence of detailed policy guidance and regulation on hazard management – disaster risk remains siloed from mainstream urban
development planning and activity [39]. The neoliberal priorities driving the direction of development policy and investment in and
around Khokana stem from political economic interests that – so far – are disproportionately benetting elite groups, to the detriment
of more vulnerable and marginalised groups who are experiencing heightened risk as a result of those developments. Taking the above
points in combination, we argue that risk-sensitive, pro-poor urban planning for future-cities needs to be both deliberate (meaning
planned, an automatic/integrated consideration, not haphazard) and deliberative (meaning inclusive, in dialogue with at-risk com-
munities, drawing on and respecting local experiences, values, priorities, observations).
7. Conclusion
This paper has applied an urban political ecology (UPE) lens to unpack the roots and impacts of ‘haphazard urbanisation’ on uneven
disaster risk creation. Over the past three decades, the peri-urban town of Khokana in the Kathmandu Valley (KV) has undergone
radical change: socially, demographically, economically and culturally. These changes are manifest in new socio-spatial geographies
and associated new, uneven and unequal geographies of disaster risk. The patterns of settlements and design of the houses have
changed, more land-use differentiations have occurred, and a large proportion of open farmland has been converted into settlements
and other commercial activities. Likewise, cultural and historical places have been modied through the commodication of space,
new economic activities have emerged such as commercial farming, and light manufacturing industries are growing rapidly. Conse-
quently, new societies of labourers, migrants, and investors with new settlements and marketplaces have formed. Mobility and eco-
nomic networks have become multifaceted and interconnected. This transformation will accelerate still further once planned
development projects such as the fast track road, outer ring road, transmission line, smart city project and Bagmati corridor road are
completed.
The paper has scrutinised these historic and current urbanisation processes in Khokana and connected them to the emergence of
new hazard exposure and vulnerability. We nd that urban expansion in KV has been accompanied by economic growth and diver-
sication but at the expense of many, particularly the poor and socio-politically marginalised. The paper demonstrates how haphazard
forms of urbanisation occurring in Khokana are both exacerbating existing hazards, and generating new ones. This analysis of
haphazard urbanisation makes three key contributions at the conuence of disaster risk geographies and UPE.
Firstly, the analysis thickens understandings of the overlapping, multi-scale, multi-temporal and multi-faceted processes of disaster
risk creation in rapidly growing urban settings. The paper shows that alongside the rise in exposure to inundation, landslide and re
hazards, urban changes in KV are simultaneously driving increased socio-economic risks (precarious livelihoods and housing), sources
of social-political risks in terms of conict, both within communities and between local residents and state actors (e.g. over land
ownership, and contestation over who is responsible for hazard creation and management), and risks to cultural heritage and place
D.P. Poudel et al.
International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 96 (2023) 103924
17
attachment (e.g. planned construction near or on sites of archaeological, religious or spiritual signicance). These impacts are
experienced as interconnected forms of everyday risk and precarity facing local communities. These ndings from Khokana echo
demands that our understanding of risk production must be anchored in the complex “richness of local experience” [86].
Secondly, the analysis demonstrates that although the whole of Khokana is at risk of hazards, the risks are unevenly and unequally
distributed. We nd that marginalised low-caste Newar groups and migrant labourers experience the highest level of risk, through the
compound effect and interaction between multiple environmental, social, political and economic forces. In particular, the haphaz-
ardness of urban expansion is a critical factor in this unequal geography of risk creation, in the various ways outlined in Section 5. UPE
was key to understanding this, by focusing attention on the underlying political economic forces driving state and private sector-led
urban transformations [31,40], and the diverse forms of control (both tacit and overt) over how different social groups inhabit,
experience and utilize urban space and environments [35–37]. UPE shows how urbanisation processes appropriate urban ecologies
alongside and as part of transformations in socio-economic and political relations [81,102,103]. The case of Khokana helps expand the
evidence base for a more “situated” UPE (after Lawhon et al. [21]), grounded in the specicity of local histories and social relations,
and for greater focus on risk creation as an essential dimension of urban transformation.
Thirdly, the paper has direct policy implications. Under the current trajectory, the production of risk is likely to further accelerate
in tomorrow’s KV, “the hub of Nepal’s urbanisation” [104]. We conclude therefore that there is an urgent need to understand and
reimagine urbanisation as a development project, both in KV and in other rapidly urbanising regions of the world. The local, municipal
and national governments all have a role to play if they are to prioritize, categorize and channel ongoing, planned, and future
developmental and constructional activities in ways that respect local cultural history and contemporary diversity, and that reduce risk
and give rise to equitable and resilient development. The range of large-scale planned infrastructure projects in and around Khokana
look set to aggravate the production of risks if disaster risk management is not embedded into planning: both deliberately and
deliberatively, incorporating local social-economic-political experiences, visions, values and knowledges. We, therefore, echo Del-
gado-Ramos’s [105] call for progressive urban development that is “proactive, imaginative, and based on an integral metabolic
planning”. Inclusive, pro-poor and risk-sensitive urban planning demands attention to the interplay between history, politics, culture,
equity and environment in tandem, in order to meaningfully reduce risk in tomorrow’s cities.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing nancial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
inuence the work reported in this paper.
Data availability
The data that has been used is condential.
Acknowledgements
We highly appreciate the people of Khokana, specially the respondents, who dedicated a lot of time and interacted with us
throughout the research period. We would like to express our sincere thanks to three anonymous reviewers, whose comments were
extremely helpful in guiding changes to the structure and framing of the paper and greatly elevated its quality overall. We deeply thank
Rachana Upadhyaya for her assistance during early stages of the eldwork. We acknowledge funding from UKRI GCRF under grant
NE/S009000/1, Tomorrow’s Cities Hub.
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