With the problem of melting glaciers, how do we solve the problem of the shortage of glacier runoff? Humans always have technology as a solution, don’t we!

 

In Ladakh, a region in the Himalayas, the shortage of water has caused problems for agriculture, not allowing for farmers to grow their crops. In the 1980s, a civil engineer named Chewang Norphel came up with a plan to divert glacier runoff during summer into small reservoirs near the various villages with extensive canals and channels. This allowed the glacier runoff to be stored through autumn and frozen in winter. These artificial glaciers only melt when the temperatures rise in spring, before the natural glaciers melt; This is the period when the shortage of glacier runoff is the greatest. This is because the artificial glaciers are at a lower altitude than the natural ones, at about 3900m compared to natural glaciers at an elevation of about 5400m.

Sonam Wangchuk, an Indian engineer, saw that these artificial glaciers melted too fast as they have large surface areas which absorbed more heat from the sun. To solve this problem, Wangchuk draws water from glacial water sources in higher elevations with underground pipes which direct this water to lower altitudes near villages. The water spouts from a tall pipe pointing towards the sky, which freeze before contacting the ground. These artificial cones of ice are called Ice Stupas, and some stand 18m tall, storing about 2000000 litres of water. Taking the daily water consumption of a person in Singapore to be 141 litres, that is about 39 years of water supply, or almost the entire volume of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. This video from BBC News shows the very interesting process.

 

However, every solution comes with its set of problems. Villages downstream of this water diversion have raised concerns that this reduces the amount of water they have for farming. Does Wangchuk or Norphel have the right to intervene with nature by diverting glacier flows? As our impact on the climate and environment grows, I feel that we must increasingly take matters in our own hands and manage our problems before it becomes too late.