Nepal Energy Gardens Qualitative Dataset and Quantitative Survey Dataset. University of Leeds. [Dataset]

Biofuels and biomass are important sources of renewable energy, yet implementation of bioenergy programmes has attracted considerable controversy for displacing food production, land-grabbing, loss of biodiversity and greenhouse gas emissions. Creation of large industrial biomass and biofuel production has an important role to play in sustainable energy provision, but the real strengths of using plants for energy is that they can be grown in a wide variety of situations and thousands of different species can be used. These datasets present household survey data and qualitative data- focus group discussions and key informant interviews carried out in three rural villages in mid-hills, Nepal to investigate the possible to establish community-based biofuel production, thereby overcoming environmental and social concerns about biofuels. A stratified random sampling procedure was used to sample the households for quantitative data to ensure that its representative of the villages where research was conducted. The research participants were drawn from different landholding categories, castes, gender and local development experts to obtain views of different section of the community in three project villages viz. Hamsapur (Gorkha), Lakuri Danda (Dolakha) and Khudi (Lamjung) in the mid-hills region of Nepal. Data collected through qualitative research complements those quantitative data collected through household survey. The qualitative research covered aspects such as forest status, local institutions for forests and biomass uses, communal and social capital, and various issues pertinent to local development and how experience from those can be utilised for community-based biofuel projects such as energy gardens. Data generated through qualitative methods will help to explain the differences in the level of fuel consumption, determining local fuel demand and supply and other local level institutions necessary for creation of energy gardens project.