The Snake and the River Don’t Run Straight: Local Knowledge on Disaster Preparedness in the Eastern Terai of Nepal

This publication is one of a series produced under the project ‘Living with risk – sharing knowledge on disaster preparedness in the Himalayan region’, implemented bythe International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) during a 15-month period in 2006 and 2007. The project was funded by the European Commission through their Humanitarian Aid department (DG ECHO) as part of the Disaster Preparedness ECHO programme (DIPECHO) in South Asia, and by ICIMOD. 

The general purpose of this report is to secure the interest of implementing organisations (governments, and non-government organisations) in, and improve their understanding of, local knowledge, practices, and contexts identified in relation to disaster preparedness so that they can be used in disaster management activities. The case study described here was carried out with the aim of identifying and documenting local knowledge and practices related to disaster preparedness in various villages prone to natural hazards, and developing and testing an analytical framework on local knowledge about disaster preparedness.