Seeking LANDCOVER file for Nepal?

Question

I am interested in running some linear regression models on landslides in Nepal, and I need to have a landcover file that I can use to prescribe values with in a raster. The only file I have seen is the ICIMOD.org file that does not appear to have an attribute table or any values attached to it whatsoever for some reason. The file is incomplete and useless as far as I can tell...it's just a bunch of cells with colors prescribed to them and that is it. If anyone knows of a location where I might find landcover data for Nepal...and specifically in the Gorkha/Rasuwa districts...please let me know.

I am not the most computer literate person in the world...so please be detailed in any advice.

Answer 1

I had asked a similar question when I was first working on a project in Nepal several years ago. I ended up having to travel to Kathmandu in order to acquire half-decent land cover data!

After working with contacts in the government through a local partner I was put in touch (read: literally driven in a truck) to the local World Wildlife Fund office. The data I received was a digitized version of the government's 1990s topographic maps mixed with some digitized aerial imagery (circa 2005-2008) covering some specific areas. Your best chance would be to contact WWF and possibly ICIMOD online and put in a request for data - perhaps it's been updated since my visit. Overall, I found the data quality to be poor and not useful for much beyond a qualitative assessment; certainly not useful for a localized landslide assessment.

Anecdotally, I'll say that working in Nepal feels a bit like travelling back in time 50 years - most everything is still done on paper and remote sensing research is rudimentary at best. Perhaps there are international researchers working in the region who have acquired higher-quality data (e.g. LiDAR) - ICIMOD would likely be your best bet for getting in touch with those sorts of contacts.