environment

Ingeokring Newsletter
ENVIRONMENT
Environmental Friendly Roads in Bhutan:
Providing access to rural communities while
protecting the environment
Hendrik Visser (Civil Engineer Delft University of Technology)
Bhutan
The Kingdom of Bhutan, or the land of the thunder
dragon, has an area of approximately 38,394 square
kilometres. It has borders with the Tibetan autonomous
region of China in the north and India in the east, west
and south. Geographically Bhutan lies within the
latitudes 26°45' N and 28°10'N and longitudes 88°45'E
and 92°10' E.
The climatic conditions vary due to the mountainous
nature of the country. The country is subject to the
monsoon rain in summer, with relatively dry winters.
About 73 percent of the land area is covered by forests
of temperate and sub-tropical species that are a natural
habitat of a diversity of flora and fauna. The country
has one of the richest biodiversity in the world with
about 3,281 plant species per 10,000 square kilometres
and has been declared one of the ten global biodiversity
'hotspots'.
Bhutan is one of the least populated countries in South
Asia. Most of the population is concentrated in the
valleys, while large areas at higher altitudes in the north
of the country are virtually empty except for nomadic
herders. The population was estimated to be 699,000 in
2001, with more than 40 percent of the people below 15
years.
The population is probably growing at between 2.5-3.5
percent per year, putting heavy pressure on natural
resources in the villages and resulting in a high rate of
Figure 1: Countries within the Hindu-Kush Himalayan
migration from rural to urban areas. The current rate of
increase is, however, expected to decline to 1.6 percent
per annum in 2011 and 1.3 percent in 2016.
Approximately 80 percent of the population lives in
villages in an extended family system. The average
household is variously estimated to comprise between
6-8 members, with an average of 43 houses per village.
There are approximately 80,000 landholdings in rural
Bhutan. About 60 percent of farmers own less than 2
hectares, which is usually insufficient to feed the
average size family. Only 7-8 percent of the land can be
cultivated and the population pressure on land and other
figure 2: equipment use
figure 3: controlled blasting
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