Dilli P. Poudel, Senior Researcher, holds an MPhil and a PhD in Geography from the University of Bergen (Norway) and a Master’s degree in Geography from Tribhuvan University (Nepal). With more than 15 years of experiences in research, teaching and tourism and over 50 publications, his research focuses on urban issues, just transitions, disasters, climate impacts and adaptation, climate finance, livelihoods, community forestry and agrarian change. Drawing on theoretical approaches including the political economy, resilience, and critical development geography, his publications include peer-reviewed journal articles, a book, book chapters, research reports, policy briefs, booklets, and media op-eds/periodicals, and contributed to developing Tomorrow’s Cities planning model, which aims to reduce disaster risks in rapidly growing cities of the global South. He joined Southasia Institute of Advanced Studies (SIAS) in January 2019 and has been involving in various national, multi-national and multi-disciplinary research projects, grant proposal writing, project designing, team building, facilitating the quality of knowledge production, and contributing to SIAS governance as a member of the Management Committee. Additionally, he has contributed as an Editor, and more recently, as the Chief-in-Editor of a peer-reviewed journal “New Angle: SouthAsian Journal of Social Science and Public Policy”. He has also contributed to international academic community by reviewing manuscripts for the Oxford Encyclopedia and several international journals.
Selected Publications
- Poudel, D. P.; Thaisa, C.; Blackburn, S., Manandhar, R. & Ensor, J. (2026). Multi-level urban risk governance and the injustice of misframing: Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. Environment & Urbanization. Sage journals. funded by UKRI GCRF. https://doi.org/10.1177/09562478261423424
- Cook, Nathan; Andersson, Krister; Grillos, Tara; Karna, Birendra; Khatri, Dil & Poudel, Dilli P. (2026). Effects of Forestry Decentralization on Rural Inequality in Nepal. Nature Sustainability. Funded byDecision Research Matching System (DRMS) National Science Foundation (NSF), USA. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-025-01729-z
- Comelli, T.; Anika Samm-a; Dilli Poudel; Jamal Dabbeek; Johanna Nalau; Jonathan Ensor; Karim Al-Jawhari; Mark Pelling; Max Hope; Mohammed Khan; Rita Thakuri; Samah Saleh; Tatu Mtwangi-Limbumba; Wilbard Kombe (2026). The power of place-based Future Visioning: enhancing climate justice in urban adaptation. Cities. Vol. 170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2025.106614
- Cook, Nathan; Khatri, Dil B.; Poudel, Dilli P.; Paudel, Govinda & Acharya; Sushant. (2025). “Dropping out of environmental governance: Why Nepal’s community-based forestry program is losing participants. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene. Elem Sci Anth, 13: 1. https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2024.00059.
- Poudel, D. P.; Paudel, NS & Paudel, D (2025). Crumbling commons? The transformation of forest-dependent societies in changing contexts. In: Restoring Forests and Improving Livelihoods in Nepal: Four Decades of Community Forestry (edited by Hemant Ojha et al.). Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781032705613-9.
- Poudel, D. P.; Manandhar, R.; Shrestha, A.; Thapa, S. and Basnet, S. (2024), Socialising Tomorrow’s Cities: Envisioning a city in Rapti/Deukhuri Valley, Nepal. [Book]. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/4307
- Poudel, D.P.; Marquardt, K; Pain, A. & Khatri D. B. (2024). De-agrarianisation and re-agrarianisation in patches: understanding microlevel land use change processes in Nepalese smallholder landscapes. Forests, Trees and Livelihoods. Vol. 33, No. 1, 1–22. Funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14728028.2023.2283022
- Farnan R. Farnan R. A.; Ensor, J: Shrestha, A.; Poudel D.; Singh, B.; Thinphanga, P.; Hutanuwatr, K.; Subedi, Y.; Lama, S.; Singh, S. & Friend, F. (2024). Knowledge infrastructures, conflictual coproduction, and the politics of planning: A post-foundational approach to political capability in Nepal and Thailand. Political Geography. Vol. 108. Funded by GCRF UKRI.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2023.103002 - Poudel, D. P.; Blackburn, S.; Manandhar, R.; Adhikari, B.; Ensor, J.; Shrestha, A. & Timsina, N. (2023). The political ecology of ‘haphazard urbanisation’ and unequal risk creation in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. Vol. 96- funded by UKRI GCRF.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.103924 - Poudel, D.P., Shrestha, A; Khatri, D.B. and Ensor, J. (2021). Editorial: Urbanization and Disaster Risks in the Himalaya.New Angle Vol. 7: 1, pp. 1-10. funded by UKRI GCRF. DOI: https://doi.org/10.53037/na.v7i1.74
- Poudel, D. P. (2021). What is an institution: An ontological debate illustrating community forestry of Nepal. The Geographical Journal of Nepal. Vol. 14: 21-40, Central Department of Geography, Tribhuvan University, Kritipur, Nepal.
- Poudel, D. P. (2019). Migration, forest management and traditional institutions: Acceptance of and resistance to community forestry models in Nepal, Geoforum, 106, pp. 275-286.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.09.003 - Poudel, D. P. (2018). Are traditional and modern forestry institutions complementary or do they prescribe contradictory rights in Trans-Himalayan Nepal? A lesson to be learned for REDD+ implementation, Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift – Norwegian Journal of Geography, 72: 1.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00291951.2017.1413418 - Poudel, D. P. & Aase, T. H. (2015). Discourse analysis as a means to scrutinize REDD+: An issue of current forest management debate of Nepal. Journal of Forest and Livelihood. 13: 1
- Poudel, D. P. (2014). REDD+ comes with money, not with development: An analysis of post-pilot project scenarios from the community forestry of Nepal Himalaya. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology, 21: 6 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13504509.2014.970242