Prabesh Khanal
Prabesh Khanal, is currently a PhD student at Washington State University in the department of Biological Systems Engineering. He completed his master’s in 2024, while a NURC fellow, and received his bachelor’s in Agricultural Engineering from Tribhuvan University in Nepal. He previously worked as a Water Engineer in the Department of Water Resources and Irrigation in Nepal for five years. His research aims to understand how the impact of a changed hydrological regime due to urbanization affects the health of agricultural lands on the urban fringe, specifically on soil’s physical, chemical, and microbial properties. He is interested in knowing the complex interactions between urbanization, agricultural production, and soil health.
Prabesh’s Work
Impacts of Urbanization on Periurban Agricultural Soil Properties: A Systematic Critical Review
The purpose of this Graduate Fellowship effort was to carry out a systematic literature review and analysis of the impact of urbanization on the soil properties of agricultural fields in the rural-urban interface, with a focus on microbial ecology. The main outcomes included a field investigation of soil quality as impacted by urban stormwater runoff, an extension white paper summarizing the literature review and critique on microbial ecology in agricultural lands in periurban areas as impacted by urbanization, and a presentation at the 2024 National Urban Extension Conference.
