3/15/2020

Pokhara University
School of Engineering
Bachelor of Civil & Rural Engineering

Rural Infrastructure –I

Chapter 2: Rural Road with Green Road Concept

Lecturer: Sundar Adhikari

MSc in Infrastructure Engineering & Management
Email : adsundar@pu.edu.np

Rural Road with Green Road Concept

Approach to Rural Road Planning

Planning is a continuous process. Rural Road networks in

Nepal are generally based on traditional trail networks,
which themselves have historical origins as ancient trading
routes, as royal pathways ("Hulaki Bato") or as local
Village connections that link communities to fields or
temples, or sources of water, firewood or fodder.

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General Approach

Planning or rural roads is part of rural transport planning, which, in turn, has its own
characteristics. Objective of rural transport planning is to identify and prioritize
infrastructure and service interventions that help improve physical accessibility of
the rural settlements. Therefore, it is focused around providing improved transport
at the household level. For this, first of all, it is necessary to know that travel and
transport needs of the people. Then developing infrastructure and services to meet
this need becomes the objectives of the rural transport project to be evolved.
Identification of rural transport needs is done in different ways such as collecting
the demand from the local communities, officials of higher authorities determining
the needs and through an objective and participatory assessment at the community
level.

Rural Road planning is a participatory approach that follows certain basic planning principles:-
A) Sustainable approach:
The conventional approach of developing transport infrastructure least considered the environment, Excessive use of
blasting results the wider mass movement and slope instability. Construction methodology is costly and the works are
carried through the contractors in the conventional approach and thus least considered the social aspects like poverty
alleviation. So, with due consideration to difficult topography and wide pervasive poverty, it is very much essential to
adopt a sustainable approach in developing transport infrastructure in rural areas. So, the sustainability of
infrastructure development is an issue of growing concern and calls for close examination of the design, construction
and maintenance of road infrastructure. In developing countries, particularly in least developed countries (LDCs) like
Nepal, the technical knowledge for infrastructure development in rural mountainous regions is still limited, which
results in technical shortcomings and significant environment impact. In the context of Nepal, the development of
infrastructure is characterized by high initial costs, frequent damages due to harsh terrain and/ or heavy monsoon rain,
long construction time and low economic returns. Therefore, there is an urgent need for serious rethinking about
infrastructure development strategies and practices. Decades of experiences of infrastructure development of
infrastructure in mountainous regions requires a multidisciplinary approach which considered social, gender equity
issues, economic, engineering, environmental and bio-technical factors for the sustainable economic development.
B) Bottom-up approach
Rural road planning approach should be well understood and acceptable at grass-root level.

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Green Road Concept

A "Green Road" is one characterized by the construction
methods described by the Green Road Concept. Usually a Green
Road has a relatively low initial design standard in terms of
surface treatment and curvature of horizontal alignment in order
to keep costs low. In fact, a Green Road is a low-cost, low-
volume, fair-weather earthen road. Green Roads initially are
typically "Village Roads", however they are not a new class of
roads. They are generally well integrated into the environment,
and often can hardly be seen from a distance. Greater emphasis is
given to the selection of a smooth longitudinal alignment that
allows for progressive upgrading as traffic increases.

• Context and Basic Principle

• In green road context word vegan in the 1980s to develop a road building
technology that was appropriate for Nepal and that was environmentally sound
for addressing the fragile mountain topography. Its goal was to conserve the
delicate mountain ecology, and, in particular, to protect vegetation as means to
prevent excessive soil erosion. Given Nepal's extreme poverty, the road building
approach needed to use labour-based methods (to generate off-farm
employment) and be affordable (i.e. low-cost. The resulting road was
appropriately described as a "Green Road".

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The main characteristics of green road are listed below:-

 Environmentally and ecologically sound
 Participatory
 Local resources
 Local technology
 Local affordable and technically appropriate
 LEP approach
 Off-farm
 Employment
 Phase-wise construction
 No use of blasting/ no use of dozer
 RBG/DRUC/LRUC system
 Cooperative
 Natural compaction
 Low cost
 Natural drainage-outward slope by 5%
 Earthen drain
 No use of cement
 No contractor system
 Developed skill of local people
 Cut-fill balance

Basic principal green road

Participatory approach
Preservation of environment
Optimization of natural processes
Rural road and trial network
Generation of local employment
Local material usage
Appropriate technology promotion
Performance based work management
Decentralization
Enhancing local capacity building
Financial transparency
Sustainable maintenance

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Classification of Rural Road

SEE NRRS 2071

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