Innovation from a remote area

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Ladakh is a cold desert and during winter, agriculture is not practiced due to frozen ground soil and low air temperature. During the spring season, water requirement for sowing increases whereas streams dries up. With an annual rainfall of less than 50 millimeters (2.0 in), agriculture in Ladakh is solely dependent on snow and glacier meltwater. Due to climate change, the region experiences hotter summers with an increase in melts along with the shift in the timing and precipitation of the melts. Subsequently, during the spring season water is scarcer which in turn impacts agriculture and food supplies

The idea behind artificial glaciers is to freeze and hold the water that keeps flowing and wasting away down the streams and into the rivers throughout the winter. Instead, this ice will melt in the springtime, just when the fields need watering. The concept of artificial glaciers is not new to Ladakh. In the new model, this is achieved by freezing the stream water vertically in the form of huge ice towers or cones of 30 to 50m height that looks very similar to the local sacred mud structures called Stupa or Chorten. Hence named as ICE STUPA. These ice mountains can be built right next to the village itself where the water is needed. Very little effort or investment would be needed except for laying one underground pipeline from a higher point on the stream to the outskirts of the village. Normally the head difference is easily 100m over a distance of roughly one to three kilometers