At an altitude of almost 4,000m and receiving almost no rainfall, the Himalayan village of Sakti is a hostile place to be a farmer. But for generations, small glaciers sitting right above the valleys acted like frozen water towers, holding onto water all winter and releasing it right when spring farming began. Now, global warming has caused those lower glaciers to vanish completely.
“Now there is scarcity of water. Last year I lost everything - my entire field got dried due of lack of water,” says Gelak Gutme, who has been growing wheat, peas and potatoes there for most of his 65 years.
“Himalayan villages build artificial glaciers to secure spring water as climate change destroys natural ice reserves.”
Lobzang Fardod, a member of a local water management committee, explains: “Now that those lower glaciers have completely vanished into a desert of dry rock, there is nothing left at the top to melt.”
The mountain summer is short, so farmers must plant their crops by May, otherwise the crops will not be ready before winter returns. A reliable source of water in early spring is crucial.
In the early 2010s, some Ladakh villages attempted to create their own reservoirs of ice. The system involved piping water from higher up in the mountains during the winter and spraying it into the air, where it would freeze, forming large towers of ice called ice stupas. They successfully supplied melt water in the spring, but were a “nightmare” to manage, says Fardod.
If temperatures dropped quickly below minus 20C, or sometimes minus 30C, the water in the pipes would freeze, cracking the pipes and ruining the whole system. To guard against that, teams of four or five farmers would camp high-up near the water source during winter, rushing to any potential blockages with boiling water, often during the night.
But those freezing winter nights could be phased out. “Because traditional water systems are failing, Leh-Ladakh has become a hub for innovative, grassroots hydraulic engineering,” says Murtaza Ali, executive engineer at the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council.
Leh is the capital of Ladakh, a disputed region in Indian-administered Kashmir sandwiched between China and Pakistan.
As well as the potential for cracked pipes, the ice stupa system was not very efficient, says Ali. Because water flowed constantly, on warmer days fresh water would melt the ice that had already formed.