Brief communication: Roads and landslides in Nepal: How development affects risk

Abstract

Abstract. The number of deaths from landslides in Nepal has been increasing dramatically due to a complex combination of earthquakes, climate change, and an explosion of road construction. We compare the distribution of landslides in Sindhupalchok district before the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake with those generated by the earthquake to demonstrate that landslides are more than twice as likely to occur near a road than a random distribution. Based on this finding, geoscientists, planners and policymakers must consider how development needs overlap with physical (and ecological), socio-political and economic factors to generate risk in exposed communities.