Introduction to the problem complexity The natural water mostly used in the South Asian region comes from the Ganges– Brahmaputra–Meghna (GBM)1 river basin. The four South Asian countries Bangladesh, Nepal, India and Bhutan are sharing the largest river basin of the world together. China is also part of this GBM delta, nevertheless, it only shares the Brahmaputra along with Bhutan, India and Ba...

Introduction Because of historical, geographical and demographic conditions Bhutan has a comparative advantage for livestock production. In spite of this favourable conditions the high expectations from development interventions of the seventies and eighties could only be partly realized. After thirty years of intensive breeding programmes, with high inputs of financial and human resources, Bhu...

With data from 10 different globalized cultures and 1 remote, isolated village in Bhutan, we examined universals and cultural variations in the recognition of 16 nonverbal emotional vocalizations. College students in 10 nations (Study 1) and villagers in remote Bhutan (Study 2) were asked to match emotional vocalizations to 1-sentence stories of the same valence. Guided by previous conceptualiz...

From January through July 2008, rabies reemerged in the Chhukha district of southwestern Bhutan. To clarify the distribution and direction of spread of this outbreak, we mapped reported cases and conducted directional tests (mean center and standard deviational ellipse). The outbreak resulted in the death of 97 animals (42 cattle, 52 dogs, and 3 horses). Antirabies vaccine was given free of cha...

Bhutan lacks the solid waste data which are essential parameters for planning and scheduling of municipal solid waste management (MSWM) systems. The first ever large-scale research survey on solid waste generation and characterization in the urban areas of Bhutan was conducted between November 2007 and January 2008 using the method of waste sampling at source. The MSW generation rates in the ur...

Land degradation by soil erosion and landslides has been recognised as a constraint for sustainable land-use in Eastern Bhutan for a few decades. However, the extreme diversity in agro-ecological zones, the relative inaccessibility of the region, the lack of reliable data and the limited research capacity made it very difficult to develop a relevant land management strategy. To address this iss...

Dengue is one of the most significant public health problems in tropical and subtropical countries, and is increasingly being detected in traditionally non-endemic areas. In Bhutan, dengue virus (DENV) has only recently been detected and limited information is available. In this study, we analyzed the epidemiological and molecular characteristics of DENV in two southern districts in Bhutan from...

The distinct feature of Bhutan is its special attention to peace, prosperity and happiness for its people. This research focuses on the expenditure inequality for 2007 and 2012 using various measurements including Gini Coefficients, Theil Indices and Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition. The results show that “between” rather than “within” inequality is the major factor contributing to the overall ineq...

The Royal Government of Bhutan pursues and promotes a policy of providing well integrated, equitable, cost-effective and balanced health services consisting of preventive, promotive, curative and rehabilitative programmes through its primary health care system. The government has accorded high priority to social sectors like health and education. However, there are serious concerns regarding th...

This study was conducted to evaluate the factors contributing spatial distribution of European hazelnut (Corylus avellane L.) in Bhutan and determine suitable areas for cultivation crop near future (2040-2060) distant (2060-2080) under different climate scenarios Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 2.6 RCP 4.5 Bhutan. The environmental layers were obtained from WorldClim processed ArcGIS...