Invited perspectives: Mountain roads in Nepal at a new crossroads

Sudmeier-Rieux, Karen; McAdoo, Brian G.; Devkota, Sanjaya; Rajbhandari, Purna Chandra Lal; Howell, John; Sharma, Shuva

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-19-655-2019

Articles | Volume 19, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-19-655-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Landslide–transport network interactions

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-19-655-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 3

Invited perspectives

|

29 Mar 2019

Invited perspectives |

| 29 Mar 2019

Invited perspectives: Mountain roads in Nepal at a new crossroads

Karen Sudmeier-Rieux, Brian G. McAdoo, Sanjaya Devkota, Purna Chandra Lal Rajbhandari, John Howell, and Shuva Sharma

Download

Final revised paper (published on 29 Mar 2019)
Preprint (discussion started on 22 Jan 2018)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

- Printer-friendly version

- Supplement

RC1: 'Review Comments', Anonymous Referee #1, 14 Feb 2018
- AC2: 'Response to anonymous reviewers and editor', Karen Sudmeier-Rieux, 14 Aug 2018
RC2: 'Reviewer Comments', Anonymous Referee #2, 08 Mar 2018
- AC3: 'Response to anonymous reviewers and editor', Karen Sudmeier-Rieux, 14 Aug 2018
EC1: 'Editor comment for NHESS 2017-462', Faith Taylor, 04 May 2018
- AC1: 'Response to anonymous reviewers and editor', Karen Sudmeier-Rieux, 20 Jun 2018

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (14 Aug 2018) by Faith Taylor

AR by Karen Sudmeier-Rieux on behalf of the Authors (16 Aug 2018) Author's response

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (21 Sep 2018) by Faith Taylor

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (23 Oct 2018)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

NHESS review

This revision is a significant improvement on the previously submitted draft. However, in several places the central argument as well as the data analyzed can and should be presented more explicitly. My comments below have three main parts:

1. This central point made here should come at the start of the article so that the reader knows exactly what is being argued. The data analyzed can then be presented in more direct relation to substantiate this claim: “This commentary suggests that the issue of poor roads in Nepal is a political, not a technical issue and one where better service and less environmental damage could both be significantly addressed through improved governance.”

2. While statements like this are partially true – “In general, connectivity is thus positively correlated with lower poverty rates” – other research shows that roads in fact increase levels of social stratification, marginalization, and uneven development. In addition to these references (Hettige, 2006; Iimi et al., 2016) which are cited numerous times at the start of the article, this reviewer strongly advises the authors to engage more extensively (one paragraph at least) with the highly influential work conducted by the University of East Anglia research team in the 1970s and 1980s (Blaikie et al. 1976). Please also double-check the citation year for this reference in the text. Please note that Rankin et al. 2017 closely review the findings of these studies as well.

3. The BRI issue is highly important but in the current version the text touches on the topic very lightly. I would suggest taking one of two alternative approaches: 1. discuss the BRI and its significance in more depth (not only what it means for Nepal, but why it has been taken up with such enthusiasm by elites in KTM, as well as the ambiguous and discursive nature of the BRI – a reified ‘thing’ that thus far has no real ‘thingness’); or 2. pay less attention to the BRI and instead focus on the connection between road construction, landslides, and increasing risks and hazards due to climate change. I think the latter (#2) is actually a far more important intervention that this article can make to the current literature and broader knowledge of road construction and landscape change and hazards in the current political and climatic environments. BRI gets lots of attention these days, but this paper is not saying all that much new or contributing a great deal to such conversations. Conversely, by building on Petley, etc., it has much to offer to debates around the connections between road construction and landslide frequency.

I hope these comments are helpful with the next round of revisions and I look forward to reading the final version.

Referee Report: PDF

Hide

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (26 Oct 2018) by Faith Taylor

AR by Karen Sudmeier-Rieux on behalf of the Authors (05 Nov 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (27 Feb 2019) by Bruce D. Malamud

Dear Karen Sudmeier-Rieux et al.

Thank you for the latest minor revisions to your manuscript "Mountain roads in Nepal at a new crossroads". I appreciate the detailed track changes document and responses that you gave. Based on these, and with sincere apologies for the delay, I am pleased to accept this for publication in NHESS, subject to some minor technical comments (see below)--I will not need to see the manuscript again before it is published, but do ask that you check carefully the copy-editing when it returns for any changes of meaning.

Technical changes:
* Please check that all references cited are in the reference list and all references in the reference list are cited at least once. I did a spot check and found items such as Iimi et al. (2016) line 83 was not in the references. If you could check all, that would be helpful.
* Can you do a last double check that all sentences with ideas/facts have appropriate in-text citations or refers the reader to later in the manuscript where in-text citations are mentioned? For example, line 97-98 discuss ‘building on research and publications’ but then does not give citations or direct the reader to other parts of the manuscript.
* Please ensure that three authors are first author surname and then et al. (line 100, this should be Blaikie et al. not listing all three surnames).
* Line 103, starting a new paragraph, it is a little confusing saying ‘this work’. I suggest you state “The work presented in this paper”
* For SI units, you do not need to explain what they are the first time you put them in. Line 136 kilometers can be left as just km.
* Figure 2—can you put a scale or give us an idea of scale in the figure caption. Is there a credit?
* In-text citations—when you have more than one in-text citation, you sometimes do them by date (oldest to newest), other times alphabetically by surname. I suggest the former, but please be consistent.
* In-text citations—line 172, avoid putting ‘accepted’ in the text, this should be (if necessary) in the reference list and read ‘in press’ if not other information.

I’d like to thank you very much for having chosen to publish with NHESS and again apologize for delays. I look forward to seeing your manuscript in print.
Regards, Bruce D Malamud
Executive Editor, NHESS

Hide

AR by Karen Sudmeier-Rieux on behalf of the Authors (07 Mar 2019) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

This article discusses how Nepal's development, landslide risk and geopolitics are intertwined as the country seeks to expand its road networks. However, rural villages adjacent to major roads have developed their own network of poorly constructed rural roads, which are likely to increase environmental and socioeconomic risks associated with roadside landslides. We base our observations on research conducted over a decade in Nepal, with reference to new research on roads and landslides.