Contemporary Environmental Problems in Nepal

Keshav Bhattarai is Professor of Geography at the University of Central Missouri. His research interests are urban planning, demographic studies, migration, land use dynamics, tourism, terrorism, cultural geography, transportation geography, and refugee issues. He has written articles on land use and cover dynamics, tourism and terrorism, demography, urban growth, refugees, forest management, crime mapping, and transportation modeling, and book chapters on cultures, demography, and urban growth. Most of his research concentration is in Nepal. He has co-authored Historical Dictionary of Nepal with Nanda Shrestha. He has also written two books on Nepal’s forest management. He did his Ph. D. under the supervision of Prof. Dennis Conway. He has received research grants from the Ford Foundation, Indian Space Grant, and  University Research Council of the University of Central Missouri. He teaches Economic Geography, Geography of Asia, Geography of the Middle East, Research Methods, Conservation Geography, Political Geography, Environmental Geography, Urban Geography, Cartography, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), remote sensing, Global Positioning System courses along with the regional courses of Europe and Asia.  Dennis Conway is Professor emeritus of Geography at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA. His research interests span development geography, urban geography, population geography, transnational migration, globalization’s influences on temporary, irregular and legal mobility patterns and processes and contemporary Caribbean tourism and development.  He has written over 140 articles and book chapters with their regional focus being two dramatically different geographical contexts- contemporary Nepal and the Commonwealth Caribbean. In Nepal, his research has examined migration and development issues, human-environment relationships, deforestation and forest settlement dynamics. In the Caribbean, his interests were broader: Caribbean urbanization, internal and transnational migration, economic development, alternative ‘Caribbean tourisms’ and the geographical and environmental consequences of these processes of social change and transformation. He is co-author of nine edited books. Some of his books include The Contemporary Caribbean (with Robert B. Potter, David Barker and Thomas Klak 2004); The Experience of Return Migration: Caribbean Perspectives (with Robert B. Potter and Joan Phillips 2005); Globalization’s Contradictions: Geographies of Discipline, Destruction and Transformation (with Nik Heynen 2006) and Return Migration of the Next Generations: 21st Century Transnational Mobility (with Robert B. Potter 2009). He is currently a member of the Editorial Boards of Progress in Development Studies and the Open Geography Journal. His research has been funded by the Ford/Rockefeller Foundation, the National Science Foundation, UNECLAC, Population Office, USAID/MUCIA, and the National Geographic Society‘s Committee for Research and Exploration.  As policy input, he has acted as a consultant to UNECLAC, Port of Spain, Trinidad, specifically preparing a Caribbean Population Background Paper (with George Stolnitz) and as Co-Director of an EPAT/MUCIA Project for USAID on “Institutional Mechanisms for Coastal Resources Protection in Small Caribbean Countries” (with Emilio F. Moran).

• From the Contents: Geographic Settings.- Spatial Locations of Nepal (Geopolitics).- Culture, Religion, and Natural Resources.- Population Growth, Migration and Residential Mobility (Literature review and field verifications).- Demographic Theory and Population Growth.- Fertility, Mortality, and Demographic Transition.- Human-environment relationships.- General Theory of Development and Migration.- Political Ecology of Land Encroachment.- Concepts and Determinants of Migration.