The federal democratic republic of Nepal is located at the boundary between Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates and therefore lies in a seismically active region. Historical data evidence the occurrence of destructive great earthquakes in the past. Mitigation of earthquake risk can be made only with adequate assessment of seismic hazard which should be based on the evaluation of seismotectonic and geological processes prevailing in this part of the world.

Microseismic monitoring is a very fast and efficient tool to understand the seismotectonics of the region. It is an instrument for seismic surveillance allowing a fast post earthquake rescue operation. For regional and global earthquake location and related seismological studies it provides a valuable database.

Microseismic monitoring in Nepal started in November, 1978 by Department of Mines and Geology (DMG), Ministry of Industry, government of federal democratic republic of Nepal in collaboration with Laboratoire de Geophysique Appliquee (LGP), Paris University, France with the installation of first short period vertical seismic station Phulchoki (PKI) hilltop in the south of Kathmandu. The number of stations were augmented gradually to create the National Network consisting of 21 short period seismic stations in 1998 and 7 accelerometer stations in 2012. The Earthquake monitoring network is operated in collaboration with the Department of Analysis & Surveillance of Environment (DASE), France. The 21 short period seismic stations and 7 accelerometer stations are installed in the Lesser Himalaya and Sub Himalayan terrain of Nepal.

The recording is carried out at two centres; Birendranagar Seismological Centre (SC), Surkhet and National Earthquake Monitoring and Research Centre (NEMRC), Lainchour, Kathmandu. SC records 9 stations of mid-western and far-western Nepal while NEMRC records the remaining 12 stations from Pyuthan in the west to Taplejung in the east. 

The stations are operated in two sensitivity channels allowing a dynamic range of 110 db. The signals are digitized centrally acquired using JADE software of DASE. The localization has been made with ONYX software of DASE since April, 2001. Before this ISIS software of DASE was used for data acquisition & processing. 

Earthquakes are caused by sudden release of elastic energy stored in the active geological faults inside the earth which causes movement in the crust. In order to monitor the crustal shortening because of continuous movement of the Indian Plate towards the north, NEMRC/DMG installed 29 GPS Stations in technical collaboration with Caltech/USA and DASE/France across the Nepal Himalaya. Following the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, a total of 51 seismic stations were established with technical support from international partners, including 10 from JICA, 10 from CEA, and 2 from RIMES. An additional 10 CGPS stations were installed in 2025 with support from the Wuhan Seismological Observatory.