Introduction: The Nepalese lowlands: land and water, local practices and national policies

This introductory article to the special section on the Nepalese lowlands presents the following theme: the management of natural resources such as land and water. This topic has often been neglected in scientific literature on this part of Nepal, especially since the emergence of political movements at the end of the People’s War. This article presents the subject of each contribution, as well as the approaches common to all three articles: historical, socio-technical and political ecology. All of them highlight the influence of institutional and technical choices of development policies on the daily lives of people who inhabit the plain. They also pay particular attention to those left behind by these development policies.