Lightning Protection/Nam S&T Centre

Lightning is highly dramatic and most common natural activity that occurs in the atmosphere. Lightning strike may cause severe damage to physical structures and claim human and animal lives. It may ignite fires that may bring an entire structure down to ashes or create cracks, and at a lover degree of damage, it may destroy electrical, electronic and communication equipment beyond repair. Transmission and communication tower, transmission lines and tall physical structures including residential houses and monuments are more vulnerable to lightning activities. However one of the most significant losses that it may cause as far as the industries are concerned is the downtime. A couple of hours of standstill of normal operation or a loss of some important data stored in a computer may cause a company a huge economic loss.

From the above stated it is evident that there is a pressing need to launch national and international level programmes in the non-aligned and other developing countries as well as in developed countries to create awareness among masses about the immediate and long term healthcare measures to be taken in case of the lightning strike on human being and animals. The engineering, technical, scientific and civil communities also need to be educated on the subject of lightning safety and protection and be ready for finding appropriate ways and means of lightning protection and maintenance. This will encourage them to acquire knowledge on the current international issues and trends with regard to lightning protection, safety and Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) with the objectives of minimizing the death toll and other lightning hazards to the human being and live stock, reducing the lightning damages to properties, industrie and other services such as power and communication and addressing basic issues of EMC.

This publication is a follow up of the 'International Symposium on Lightning Protection' organised at Kathmandu, Nepal during 12-14 October, 2011 by the NAM S&T Centre jointly with the Ministry of Science and Technology(MOST), Government of Nepal and Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST), Kathmandu, Nepal.

The book includes 20 scientific chapters including country status reports from 13 developing countries, presenting significant insights on lightning protection and concerned management strategies, and it would be usefull for the lightning researchers, experts and practitioners in this field.