Ladakh’s artificial glaciers: climate-adaptive design for water scarcity

Abstract

For decades, the artificial glaciers in Ladakh, North India, have been trumpeted as useful water-harvesting devices for subsistence farming communities. In this context, the massive masonry structures link low-tech, vernacular hydrological thinking with design innovation to create a popular climate-adaptive design solution. While these interventions appear to provide promising new strategies for water harvesting in this dry desert region, very little data exist to substantiate, quantify, or contradict the project claims. This paper interrogates these structures through the lens of the design disciplines and considers the functional aspects of a prototypical artificial glacier system. Six different artificial glacier systems were studied over a period of two summer months, revealing a variety of design and construction approaches. These findings give rise to a number of engineering patterns that may be found in an archetypical artificial glacier system.

The Global Social and Economic Consequences of Mountain Cryospheric Change

“…The high mountain areas in developing countries still have a considerable population dependent on agriculture, forestry, fisheries, pasture, and tourism for their livelihoods and food security, and depend on snow and glacier melt water for irrigation and subsistence agriculture for maintaining soil moisture and vegetation growth and groundwater recharge (Bury et al, 2013;Paudel and Andersen, 2013;Parveen et al, 2015;Clouse et al, 2016). High mountain agriculture and agro-pastoralism are particularly vulnerable to changes in the cryosphere as they depend on spring and summer runoff from melting snow and ice for irrigation (Dame and Nusser, 2011;Parveen et al, 2015;Clouse et al, 2016).…”

“…Some regions of the Himalayas, such as Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, and north western India, are completely dependent on snow and glacial meltwater for irrigation (Parveen et al, 2015;Clouse et al, 2016;Mukherji et al, 2019). In northern India, the gradual recession of low-lying glaciers over the last three decades has reduced the supply of irrigation meltwater available to farmers and caused chronic drought in many subsistence agricultural villages (Grossman, 2015).…”

“…Examples of observed impacts of cryospheric change on water availability and quality. Himalaya Increased glacier recession and decline in snowpack, combined with other climatic factors, leading to water shortage for irrigationClouse, 2016;Clouse et al, 2016;Nüsser et al, 2018 Gilgit Balistan. Pakistan, HimalayaThinning of glaciers and decline in snowmelt water, affecting water availability for irrigation…”

Socio-hydrology: A New Perspective on Mountain Waterscapes at the Nexus of Natural and Social Processes

“…These artificial structures, located at altitudes below the glaciers and above agricultural settlements, seek to minimize the risk of water scarcity for smallholder irrigation. Such ice storage dams utilize the physical process of icing to facilitate the freezing of stream water during the winter to be later released as meltwater in the critical growing period in spring (Clouse et al 2016;N€ usser and Baghel 2016).…”

Socio-hydrology of “artificial glaciers” in Ladakh, India: assessing adaptive strategies in a changing cryosphere

“…1 Ice reservoirs in central Ladakh 2015). Recent research has called for an examination of their long-term efficacy and their usefulness as climate change adaptation strategies (Clouse et al 2017). We attempt to address this gap through a longitudinal study that takes into account their functioning as supplementary irrigation, as interventions to foster sustainable development, and their usefulness as adaptation strategies to global climate change.…”