CHAPTER - IV

METHODOLOGY

4.1 Conceptual Framework

The conceptual framework of the research methodology was as follows:

Site selection

Masine Khlola sub-watershed SCUGs,

Literature Review Handikhola v.d.c-7

Data collection

Advice of Advisor

Primary Data Secondary Data

Household Survey Previous research Findings

Key Informant Survey Different published and Unpublished Reports
Focus Group Discussion Internet

Data Analysis

Findings of the study

Results and discussion

Conclusions & Recommendations

 Figure 4.1 Framework of the study:

4.2 To assess impacts of Water Harvesting techniques :

water harvesting initative are often constructed for storing water for irrigation purpose and for
drinking purpose Also the ponds are used for fish farming. There are some downstream benefits
from construction of these water harvesting initative.Farm land is protected from flood damage
and stream bed of downstream of the dams is sometimes rehabilitated for agriculture use. There
are indirect benefits of these ponds too. Retention of run-off by the dams provide more time for
infiltration resulting an increase in moisture level of the land around the ponds, which is earlier
used to be dry and conservation pond also help to recharge ground water.

Hence, Assessment impacts of Water Harvesting techniques in livelihood, is done on the

basis of following indicators:

Physical capital impact indicators

I. Increase in Livestock population.

II. Increase in agriculture production.
III. Aquifer recharge(Naya muhan shrijana hune).

financial capital impact indicators

I. Increase in employment generation.

II. Increase in IGAs.
III. Increase in overall income.
IV. Increase in food security.

Natural capital impact indicators

I. Decrease flood in rainy season.

II. Decrease in soil erosion.Increase in productivity of land
III. Decrease scarcity of drinking water.
IV. Enhancing biodiversity.

Social capital impact indicators

 I. Relationship among users is increased.
II. Network with GONs,NGONs is increased.
III. Increased freedom in decision making
IV. increased participation in benefit sharing.
V. Increased gender and social inclusion.

Human capital impact indicator

I. Increase in lliteracy
II. Increase in involvement of knowledgeable activities
III. Increase in health condition.
IV. Increase in education status

4.3 Study Area Selection

Masine Khola sub-watershed In Makwanpur district of central development Region was selected
because the soil conservation User Group (SCUGs) have been conducting soil and watershed
Management activities which include Water harvesting techniques with the support of
DSCO,Makwanpur since 2061/2062,SCWM activities includes Gully Control ,Landslide
Treatment, Flood control, Bio-diversity conservation ,Land productivity ,conservation
pond,irrigation cannel,water source protection activities and also the District Agriculture
Development Office,different NGOs supporting the local respondent on construction of water
harvetsting measures on the Masine khola sub-watershed.

On masine khola sub-watershed area Bankariya community were lived,they are in the verge of
extinction and they were lived in extremely poor economic condition.The study area is the only
last resort of this community and Bankariya were also in SCUGs group. Area has got the history
of flooding and flood damage by masine khola.Since the sub-watershed is located in the siwalik
zone and hence, provides unique opportunity to look into the changes in the surface and sub-
surface hydrology due to promotion of different SCWM(water harvesting) activities such as
conservation pond,irrigation cannel,water source protection . Changes in the biodiversity can be
seen after the implementation of the program.in
In short, the SCWM has been implementing in the area since 2001 and hence, the area provides
opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of the program on micro-climate changes especially on
3 fields viz. biodiversity, erosion and water yield.

4.4 Sampling Design

categoriesAs the total population size was 322 households 20% sampling intensity had been taken
for household survey to study and Sixty four households were selected as sample households for the
study as per Systematic Random Sampling design from Masine Khola. These households were grouped
into different categories based on socio-economic and ethnicity. Information from household survey were
collected from all categories.The respondents of the study are were soil conservation User
committee member ,Local leader,social worker,Agriculture office Users.

3.4 Data collection method

Both qualitative and quantitative information were collected from different sources. Different methods
were applied for data collection and analysis. The design mainly requires spatial, socio-economic,
institutional and biological data, which was used to achieve the objective of this research work. Reliable
and accurate spatial, socio-economic, institutional and biological data were very important for drawing
inferences to fulfill the objectives of this study. The method mainly consists of two sources, namely
primary and secondary sources. Most of the information was collected through primary sources. The
secondary sources include the review of literature from books, reports and research papers. The detail
data collection procedure was as follow:

3.4.1 Primary data collection

Primary data were collected from the selected Respondets, using different Participatory Rural Appraisal
tools and techniques such as reconnaissance survey, semi-structure interviews or questionnaire survey,
key informants and focus discussion, semi-structure transect walk or direct observation and cross-
checking of information etc. Following methods were used to collect necessary information from the
primary sources:

A) Reconnaissance survey

This was done in the initial stage to find out the overview of the area. The river system was visited before
data collection to familiarize the condition; types and structure of the forest, socio-economic conditions
and general information was collected from this reconnaissance survey and discussion with the local
people. Reconnaissance survey was conducted to get basic information and to establish rapport with local
people.

B) Questionnaire Survey

Semi-Structured questionnaires were used to collect the necessary information. questionnaire

(Annex 1) was prepared, and pre-testing of questionnaire was done outside the study area. Final
questionnaire was developed including the responses of pre-testing. Households for survey were selected
by using simple random sampling method. This survey was conducted visiting door to door of all selected
households to acquire relatively detailed information on the socio-economic and biological situation, of
Water availability, agriculture production,income generation and its impacts on livelihood of respondent
households.
C) Key Informants survey
Initially ,the information about the SCUGs ,User composition and activities of the SCUGs
,selected HHs were collected from key informants .The key informants like social workers,
political leaders.District soil conservation office,DDC member, VDC members had been
interviewed using structured questionnaire.
D) House hold (HH) survey:
Out of the total number of the household of 20% respondents (64) were selected for the questionnaire to
find out the impact of Water harvesting techniques in their livelihood.
E) Focus Group Discussion (FGD)
Focus group discussion were organized with selected different ethnic groups, women and socio-
economic background involved in soil and watershed management activities and involved in water
harvesting activities to collect variety of information and ideas from the community .The group
discussion had been done with all level of users (focusing with the poor, women and
marginalized people), executive committee member.A special checklist developed for the focus
group for data collection.The average number of participants in FGD were seven to tweleve and
discussion lasted for two hours.
f) Direct Observation

Field observation was carried out at the time of meeting, discussion and information has gathered
to assume the status of the area.

F) Transect Walk of Forest and Farmlands

It is a walk on Masine khola sub-watershed The walk was structured, inclusive, and participatory for
reflection and verification of information collected from different sources, and, often, new insight seeing
features of the natural, physical, and social landscape in new ways and relationships. It was done adopting
following process and practices:

 Plan 'transect' route for the walk which is literally a ‘cut’ or ‘section’ that crosses all the key features
of the village, farmland and forests, and rivers.
 Local peoples first identify the boundaries of the parts of areas where Water Harvesting activities
were conducted,
 Walk slowly and systematically through this transect route, pausing and stopping frequently at each
Water Harvesting measures.
 During this visit encourage participants to discuss about positive trends, and negative trends such as
problems, issues, threats, vulnerabilities, and livelihood relationships and dependencies of different
households have with affected resources.
 Finally, discuss the collected information and draw a transect diagram that illustrates the main
features and issues at each feature, and develop possible future activities for livelihood improvement
and conservation.

3.4.2 Secondary data collection

Secondary information such as demography, socio-economic information, forest product dependency,
agricultural productivity, income generating activities, sale of forest products, record keeping system and
other institutional aspect related information was collected from DSCO,DADO office, VDC, DDC and
other sources. Similarly, publications, research papers were also used to get valuable and useful
information related to livelihood.

Related secondary data were collected from the concerned District Forest Office, District Soil
Conservation Office, District Agriculture Development Office, District Livestock Service Office, District
Development Committee and Village Development Committees,Parsa wildlife reserve Information on
Number of Water harvesting measure constructed by them,Activity profile of the GONs office and other
published documents of the district

Publications on Water Harvesting measures and its impacts on livelihoods of local peoples as well as
peoples of downstream were also studied and reviewed from library of different academic and
nonacademic organizations like: KAFCOL, IOF, TU, IUCN, and ICIMOD, Ministry of Forests and Soil
Conservation etc. Furthermore, essential information were also downloaded from related websites.
3.5 Data analysis
Both qualitative and quantitative data was analyzed and interpreted through Microsoft excel
database in descriptive way and were presented in table, mean, average, charts and graphs etc.

3.5.1 Index of Relative Ranking (IRR)

Respondents’ response on perception towards the indicators of different assets were determined
by asking their view & noted in Likert scale to interpret in quantitative way in which (1)
understood for strongly agreed and (5) for strongly disagreed. Index of Relative ranking (IRR)
was calculated to find out the perception of the respondents towards the indicators of different
livelihood assets. From the Likert scale, the IRR was calculated. The scales and indexes are used
for the quantitative interpretation of qualitative data, particularly ranking and scaling. They can
be used to measure or assess attitudes and other forms of qualitative reactions. Their use in the
social sciences is common, and they “are significant because they provide quantitative measures
that are amenable to greater precision, statistical manipulation, and explicit interpretation”
(Miller, 1983 cited in Yadav, 2006).
IRR=(R1S1 + R2S2 +……….+Rn Sn)/nr
Where,
IRR= Index of Relative ranking
R1 = Rank of the first order
S1 = Score of the highest order
Rn= Rank of the last order
Sn = Score of the first order
n=number of the respondents

r=total ranks

The scales of perception were given value from 1 to 5 indicating strongly-agree to strongly
disagree. Then, the value of 0.1 was given to perception 1 (i.e., strongly agree) and 1.0 to
perception 5 (strongly disagree). Then, the difference between strongly disagree and strongly
agree (i.e., 1.0-0.1= 0.90) was divided by 4 to find out the equal intervals to calculate coefficient
for the perception scales. Then, the difference between scale 1 to 5 (i.e., 1.0-0.1= 0.90) was
divided by four to find out the equal intervals to calculate coefficient value (i.e.0.225) for the
perception scales. Then index value 0.1+0.225=0.325 was obtained for perception scale 2, and
similarly 0.325+0.225=0.55 for perception scale 3 and 0.55+0.225= 0.775 for perception scale 4
was obtained. Thus, the coefficient of each of the perception scale was found out. Each
coefficient of each perception scale was multiplied by the respective frequency and divided by
the total of the frequency to obtain the index value (IRR).
If the IRR value ranges from 0.775 to 1 there is slight impact on livelihood of people and
similarly, 0.55 to 0.775 moderate, 0.325 to 0.55 bad, 0.1 to 0.0.325 very bad impact on the
livelihood of people around the Lothar River System.