What roads changed in remote Nepal: markets, work and landslides

One 2025 study of a Karnali Highway ward recorded changes in markets, work and travel time², while a study of 200 hill wards found little systematic evidence of economic gains and linked earthen road expansion to landslide-affected area¹. The rural roads hub holds the related pages.

The economic evidence

The evidence here comes from one 2026 paper in the journal Asian Development Review (Adhikari et al.), as summarised on Eos’s Landslide Blog by Dave Petley; the paper itself was not read for this page¹. It examines the economic benefits of the two main types of rural road in Nepal, blacktop and earthen, across 200 wards in the hilly areas, with little systematic evidence that better road access enhances economic outcomes¹. Rural road construction has carried on at a high pace in Nepal for over 20 years¹.

In the blog’s summary, earthen roads in the hilly areas generate limited economic benefits but carry a high landslide cost¹. Across a wide range of economic indicators, there is no real quantitative data that rural roads are improving the livelihoods of people in remote locations¹. The case for these roads rests on access to education, markets, health facilities and jobs, and on direct employment during construction when a participatory approach is used¹. Most earlier Nepal-specific studies date from the 1990s to early 2000s, when the country had a very different, primarily agricultural, economy¹.

The two road types differ in cost. Blacktop roads are often upgrades on existing roads, so they inflict a much lower environmental cost than new construction¹. Earthen roads tend to be new-build¹.

The landslide cost

Ward-level estimates showed that the expansion of earthen motorable roads between 2016 and 2018 was associated with a significant increase in landslide-affected areas, whereas blacktop roads exhibited no detectable effect¹. The blog’s author adds that roads built with low levels of engineering input lead to large numbers of landslides, and that fatal landslide occurrence in Nepal is on an upward trajectory¹. More intense rainfall is part of the rise, and low-cost rural roads are also a factor, in his words¹.

The 2018 peer-reviewed study in Sindhupalchok found there are likely to be twice as many monsoon-generated landslides in terrain with poorly constructed roads as would be present without roads⁵. Villagers there hire earth-moving equipment to expand footpaths into roads that bring goods and services to isolated locations⁵. Communities fund part of this with remittances sent from overseas⁵. Informal, non-engineered roads regularly fail during the annual monsoon season⁵. The mechanism, and what travellers should expect in the monsoon, is in landslides and road safety.

What the Karnali Highway changed

The Karnali Highway connects Surkhet to Jumla via Dailekh and Kalikot over 233 km². Construction began in 2000 and was completed in 2015². The basic earthen road opened in 2000 to 2002, but it took nearly 14 years to complete the fully graveled and blacktopped highway in 2015². Route detail is on the Karnali Highway page.

A 2025 Nepal Sociological Journal study of Dahikhola-Chhati, Ward 1 of a rural municipality along the highway, recorded the changes below, all as the study’s own findings². The ward has 917 residents in 133 households, and the study was published in June 2025².

In the study’s account, cash-based daily wage work has become more common in Dahikhola-Chhati, reducing dependence on exploitative caste-based economic systems, and improved road access let local producers and workers reach broader markets². It is one ward, and the study’s findings are not a measure for the highway as a whole.

What roads in Nepal are like

Nepal’s road network was 36,132 km in the Economic Survey 2024-25, reported by the Kathmandu Post in May 2025³. The government had constructed 355 km of new blacktopped roads in the first eight months of that fiscal year³. The survey put blacktopped roads at 19,163 km by mid-March, gravelled roads 8,204 km and unpaved roads 8,765 km, a total that matches the network figure³. The government has prioritised expanding road access to remote regions³. Its priorities also include upgrading existing roads to all-weather standards³.

A programme for provincial and local roads

On 21 November 2024 the Government of Nepal and the World Bank jointly launched the $128 million (NRs 17.15 billion) Provincial and Local Roads Improvement Program-Phase 1⁴. The Ministry of Urban Development implements it in coordination with provincial and local levels⁴. The first of three phases covers Sudurpashchim, Karnali and Madhesh provinces and 13 municipalities, to be scaled up in later phases⁴.

About one million people are expected to benefit from improved access to all-weather, resilient and safe provincial and local roads and bridges⁴. The design combines five-year performance-based maintenance with construction contracts, and routine maintenance conducted by self-help groups⁴. At the launch a tri-partite memorandum of understanding was signed between the federal government and the provincial and local governments of Sudurpashchim, Karnali and Madhesh⁴. The programme aims to improve the connectivity, efficiency, resilience and safety of the provincial and local road network⁴. The Deputy Prime Minister called the project’s focus on environment-friendly, climate-resilient construction techniques and its five-year maintenance component key⁴.

Related pages: footpaths across rivers on trail bridges, the unpaved Mugu-Humla link road, and how a rural road is planned and built in how rural roads are built.