Biogas adoption and its impact on women and the community: evidence from Nepal

ABSTRACT

The study examines the benefits of biogas adoption in Nepal using survey data, land satellite images and GIS mapping tools. The study shows from the women’s standpoint how biogas has brought many benefits to local women and the environment. The findings suggest that installing biogas plants saves time for women and improves their respiratory health. It is also concluded that the saved time has not been effectively used. Biogas is also found to be the reason for increased revenues for the community, and replacing 2.7 to 5.3 tonnes of fuel wood annually with an increase in a forest area of 135 hectares. Two major challenges to the sustainability of these benefits related to health, well-being, environment and community are discussed, along with some suggestions for addressing them.

KEYWORDS:

• Biogas
• gender
• sustainability
• renewable energy
• Nepal

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Rosy Pradhan Shrestha: Conceptualisation, Project administration, Writing original draft, Writing- review & editing, Formal analysis, Investigation. Sopin Jirakiattikul: Supervision, Writing- review & editing Binod Chapagain: Formal analysis, Writing- review & editing. Hari Katuwal: Writing- review & editing, Visualisation, Formal analysis. Saroj Gyawali: Conceptualisation, Methodology. Mandip Shrestha: Resources, Project administration, Investigation.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has documented hundreds of rape cases of refugee women, who were also brutalised by bandits while they were collecting fuel wood away from their camps in Somalia [21].

2. According to a study [65], 78% of girl gets married before their 20^th birthday. The data were analysed from 9,783 married women using 2011 Nepal Demographic and Health Survey. The average age at the first marriage is recorded as being 20.7 years for girls in Nepal [66].

3. A ward is a political unit of a municipality, and a ward comprises a few village clusters.

4. Currency has been converted as per Foreign Exchange rate from Central Bank of Nepal dated 9^th January 2024.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies.