Digitisation of field data for sub-national biophysical forest indicators in Nepal

About the workshop

ICIMOD is organising a week-long training on the digitisation of field data.

The Government of Nepal (GoN) has committed to maintaining 45 percent of Nepal’s forest cover in its most recent Nationally Determined Contribution communicated under the Paris Agreement. The Forest Act 2019 and Forest Regulation 2022 aim to increase the contribution of forests towards national incomes, while at the same time maintaining forest cover, in line with Green, Resilient, Inclusive Development (GRID) principles. In this context, the World Bank is supporting the GoN in its efforts toward a major transformation of the forest sector through multiple interventions in Nepal.

Understanding forest condition at sub-national levels is important for informing forest management plans, forest resource revenue-sharing, and forest projects financed by the World Bank. Currently available biophysical indicators on forests (e.g., forest cover, forest condition, etc.) are at the national level and cannot be used to produce reliable estimates of forest cover at the provincial and municipal levels due to unquantifiable measurement errors introduced while disaggregating the data into subnational level. The Forest Research and Training Centre (FRTC) under the Ministry of Forests and Environment (MoFE) has identified the need for sub-national forest statistics to support provincial and municipal governments to develop sustainable forest management plans. The GoN has therefore requested for World Bank’s support in building a sustainable land cover monitoring system at the sub-national level that addresses the issue and produces reliable data with key forest types on annual basis at the municipality level.

Objectives

The training aims to provide participants better learning of digitisation of field data, which will be used in mapping of biophysical indicators at the sub-national level in Nepal.

Expected outcomes

Upon completion of the training, participants will have a better understanding on the digitisation of field data.

Expected participants

The course will bring together young professionals from FRTC, Nepal with adequate technical background on land cover mapping, remote sensing and GIS, and data collection skills.

Resource persons

• Bimal Acharya, Under-Secretary, FRTC
• Bikram Shakya, Geospatial Application Development Analyst, ICIMOD
• Sudip Pradhan, Geospatial Application Development Specialist, ICIMOD
• Sajana Maharjan, Remote Sensing and Geoinformation Analyst, ICIMOD

Tentative agenda