India farmers create artificial glaciers to forestall crop failure

By Ben Arnoldy | The Christian Science Monitor, Oct 22, 2009 Stakmo, India — Chhewang Norphel makes artificial glaciers. The reason: The real ones have rapidly receded up the Himalayan slopes in his home district of Ladakh in northernmost India. Himalayan communities like Ladakh rely on glacial runoff to grow food, making them – along with tiny island nations – among the first to feel an existential threat from climate change. Mr. Norphel’s artificial glaciers represent one of the earliest human efforts at adaptation. “At the moment, except for this, there is no other solution,” says Norphel. But he feels time running out, since even his idea requires runoff from real glaciers. “Everything is melting very, very quickly because of global warming.” … “The fields used to be full of snow, now they aren’t at all,” says Tashi Tondup, a farmer in Stakmo. Some 80 percent of Ladakhi farmers like Mr. Tondup depend on snow and glacial melt for irrigation, according to Norphel. … “After getting the glacier, [farmers] had sufficient water to do what they were doing originally – a bad situation went to normal,” says Mr. Wangchuk. But the 2006 floods wiped out the glacier and earthworks. … “There needs to be some source of water,” says Norphel. “When all the glaciers [are] finished, it will be very difficult to solve this problem.” …

Indians decide to make their own glaciers