Climate, Risk and Resilience Lab (CRR Lab), a Kathmandu-based research organization co-founded by Binod Prasad Parajuli and Preshika Baskota, built a virtual reality landslide experience for schools in Nepal's landslide-prone Bajhang and Bajura districts. The content was created from 360-degree and aerial images of real landslide sites in those districts and packaged into web and mobile applications for the Meta Oculus Quest 2 platform, with embedded hazard-awareness and adaptation guidance layered onto the imagery. CRR Lab's own site states the initiative was made possible through collaboration with UNESCO, and that it built on groundwork laid by the earlier Landslide Environmental Virtual Observatory (LEVO) project in the same districts.
The VR sessions were piloted in 2024 and delivered to over 500 students and teachers from two public schools in Bajhang and Bajura, and were also run for 40 community representatives (including members of Community Disaster Management Committees and Women Empowerment Groups) across a wider set of four districts in Sudurpaschim Province: Bajhang, Bajura, Doti, and Kanchanpur. Participants used the headset to view landslide scenes and explore virtual landscapes, observing landslide impacts and mitigation strategies through interactive exercises.
CRR Lab reports that participants came away not just informed but more willing to advocate for safer infrastructure, share knowledge with family, and respond faster to danger, and that the organization envisions scaling the approach and adding AR in future work. This record covers the 2024 school/community VR-classroom pilot described above; a separate, later CRR Lab landslide-VR engagement for other partners in different project areas is not part of this record.
