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Governance of TVET in Nepal
Item type: Report
Renold, Ursula; McDonald, Patrick; Pérez-Viana Martinez, Borja (2026)
This report examines how the actors who govern Nepal's technical and vocational education and training (TVET) system perceive its governance and the relationships among them. Drawing on two waves of a survey of institutions throughout the sector, conducted in 2023/24 and 2025/26, it covers federal, provincial and local governments, the Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT), employer representative groups, development partners and TVET schools, assessing governance across ten dimensions and mapping the network of relationships between actor groups. Actors judge governance workable rather than strong, and this assessment is remarkably even across actor groups, dimensions and individual items, with perceptions barely shifting between the two waves. The system leans towards coordination and output orientation, but only tentatively, suggesting that responsibilities are not yet clearly defined in practice. The network analysis shows relationships oriented strongly towards the centre, with the CTEVT occupying a dominant position and lower-tier actors weakly connected, and reveals a marked disconnection between training institutes and employers, whose representative associations do not perform the intermediary function their position implies. Set against nearly a decade of recommendations and government commitments, these findings suggest the gap lies in implementation rather than design: the instruments—a proposed allocation of roles, a coordination mechanism provided for in law, and a strategic commitment to both—already exist, and what remains is their enactment.
Regional-Scale Lithospheric Recycling on Venus Via Peel-Back Delamination
Item type: Journal Article
Adams, Andrea C.; Stegman, Dave R.; Smrekar, Suzanne E.; et al. (2022)
We currently have a limited understanding of the tectonic framework that governs Venus. Schubert and Sandwell (1995, https://doi.org/10.1006/icar.1995.1150) identified over 10,000 km of possible subduction sites at both coronae and chasmata rift zones. Previous numerical and experimental studies have shown the viability of regional-scale lithospheric recycling via plume-lithosphere interactions at coronae, yet little work has been done to study the possibility of resurfacing initiated at Venusian rift zones. We created 2D numerical models to test if and how regional-scale resurfacing could be initiated at a lateral lithospheric discontinuity. We observed several instances of peel-back delamination—a form of lithospheric recycling in which the dense lithospheric mantle decouples and peels away from the weak, initially 30 km-thick crust, leaving behind a hot, thinned layer of crust at the surface. Delamination initiation is driven by the negative buoyancy of the lithospheric mantle and is resisted by the coupling of the plate across the Moho, the significant positive buoyancy of the crust arising from a range of crustal densities, and the viscous strength of the plate. Initial plate bending promotes yielding and weakening in the crust, which is crucial to allow decoupling of the crust and lithospheric mantle. When there is sufficient excess negative buoyancy in the lithospheric mantle, both positively and negatively buoyant plates may undergo delamination. Following a delamination event, the emplacement of hot, buoyant asthenosphere beneath the crust may have consequences for regional-scale volcanism and local tectonic deformation on Venus within the context of the regional equilibrium resurfacing hypothesis.
Large-Scale Drivers of Persistent Extreme Weather During Early Summer 2021 in Europe
Item type: Journal Article
Tuel, Alexandre; Steinfeld, Daniel; Ali, S. Mubashshir; et al. (2022)
The early summer of 2021 was a season of extremes across Europe. Heatwaves, droughts and wildfires hit Eastern Europe and the Baltic, while repeated extreme precipitation in Western Europe culminated in massive floods in mid-July. The large-scale circulation during this period was remarkably persistent, with an extremely meridionally amplified flow over Europe. Recurrent blocking over the Baltic and Rossby wave breaking in the North Atlantic led to frequent heavy precipitation in Western Europe and the Black Sea and to warm and dry conditions over Eastern Europe. These conditions persisted for a month as the blocks and wave breaking episodes strengthened one another, while three closely spaced extratropical transitions of tropical cyclones in the eastern North Atlantic led to recurrent amplification of the jet. Seasonal anomalies thus emerge from the complex interactions of individual weather events, offering an interesting storyline for climate impact assessment and a formidable challenge for (sub-) seasonal prediction.
Vegetation-Promoted Soil Structure Inhibits Hydrologic Landslide Triggering and Alters Carbon Fluxes
Item type: Journal Article
Fan, Linfeng; Lehmann Grunder, Peter Ulrich; Zheng, Chunmiao; et al. (2022)
Vegetation modulates rainfall-induced shallow landslides in mountainous regions primarily via root reinforcement, canopy interception, and evapotranspiration. An understudied consequence of vegetation activity is the promotion of soil structure development-an important soil trait often neglected in hydromechanical models. Here we propose a novel mechanism for how vegetation-promoted soil structure inhibits landslides via enhanced hillslope infiltration capacity and drainage that delay the onset of landslide triggering. The hydrologic alterations due to developed soil structure also decrease sediment yields and associated particulate organic carbon (POC) transport to rivers while promoting export of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) via hydrologic leaching. We identified global "hotspots" for soil structure impacts that support the putative role of vegetation-promoted soil structure in observed POC/DOC partitioning. The incorporation of soil structure in Earth system models is not only important for infiltration-runoff quantification, but also for its potential role in controlling regional and global carbon fluxes to oceans.
Chasing the melting ice: evidence for the earliest Holocene glacier minimum in the Alps and precise dating of the subsequent advance at the end of the Preboreal
Item type: Journal Article
Nicolussi, Kurt; Le Roy, Melaine; Hajdas, Irka; et al. (2026)
The ongoing rapid glacier melting in the European Alps due to anthropogenic climate warming has led to the discovery of previously buried tree remnants at the retreating ice margins proving long-lasting Holocene glacier minima as analogous to the recent state of glaciation. Since 2018, remnants of multi-centennial-aged trees have become accessible at the retreating terminus of the Morteratsch Glacier, Swiss Alps. Some tree remnants prove multi-centennial glacier minima before c. 6.50 and 3.88 ka. However, the majority of the findings represent the oldest Holocene woods found to date on a glacier forefield in the European Alps. They demonstrate a distinct and previously unknown glacier minimum lasting at least 430 years, between c. 10.78 and 10.35 ka, during which the glacier was consistently smaller than c. 2020 CE. This earliest Holocene glacier minimum during the late-Preboreal was terminated by an advance of the Morteratsch Glacier c. 10.35 ka (i.e. 8349 ± 14 cal BCE) proven by several tree remnants with killing dates. The culmination of this glacier advance towards the end of the Preboreal is documented at few Alpine glaciers through moraines located slightly outside the later Little Ice Age limits and cosmogenic dated to around 10.2 ka. In a hemispheric comparison, the onset of the glacier minimum at Morteratsch Glacier corresponds with the oldest dates available for glacier extents as today, namely in western North America, and the dating of the late-Preboreal glacier culmination also corresponds with culmination ages in Scandinavia as well as in north-eastern North America and Greenland.