Advisor: Amity Doolittle
Warming temperatures have altered water availability in the Himalayan region of Ladakh, India, shortening the growing season. As climate change uncouples glacial melt cycles from the agricultural season, water is in increasingly short supply for farmers in the Himalaya, leading to difficult decisions about how many fields to plant and what to grow, as well as tensions with neighbors. A water harvesting strategy that diverts water into storage in colder mountain valleys in October and November for use in the water limited months of March and April has been developed and is in use in ten villages in the Himalaya. Villagers call these masses of ice “artificial glaciers”. Currently only anecdotal evidence of their value exists.