Groundwater quality: Nepal

Nepal is a landlocked co
untry in southern Asia,
between China and India, with a total land area of
140,800 square kilometres
. Topographic variations
are extreme and the terrain has a general southward
slope. The topography ranges from rugged high
Himalaya in the north, to the central hill region, to
the lower-lying Siwalik Range (south-central) and
down to the ‘terai’ or flat river plain in the south.
Elevations range from gr
eater than 8000 m (Mount
Everest range) on the north border with China
(Tibet; Figure 1) to 70 m (Kanchan Kalan, terai
region) in the south. Nepal has eight of the ten
highest mountains in the world.