The Man Who Wants to Make Artificial Glaciers to Save the Himalayans

The Himalayans had a water problem. In the summer months, parched residents looked to the mountain peaks, wondering why the glacial melt they relied upon for fresh water had dried up completely.

Typically, the snow and ice that melted during the summer months would sustain the agriculture in this mountainous region's high-altitude villages, between India and Nepal. But climate change has shrunk the glaciers in the Himalayas significantly over the past decades. The existing glaciers are no longer close enough to the villages to provide water during the hot months.

Indian scientist Sonam Wangchuk saw a way to bring relief to these villages. He created a method to spray water from nearby glacial streams into freezing air during colder months to create artificial glaciers.

The glaciers are called ice stupas, which look like magical ice palaces in the dry, brown terrain, and are meant to store water for trees, farming and drinking to these villages until the sun melts it during the summer months. Named after Buddhist monuments, they are each 30 meters tall and can provide millions of gallons of water to parched residents.

Glacial melt is a huge issue worldwide, especially since glaciers and snowpacks are often used as a natural slow-release reservoir for areas that don't get much summer rain.

The increase in greenhouse gases keeps some areas too warm for glaciers to properly refreeze in the winter and to slowly thaw throughout the spring and summer. Some scientists are predicting that most of the glaciers near Mount Everest will be gone by 2100. According to a study published by the European Geoscience Union's scholarly journal, 70 percent of the Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2100.

Wangchuk, 50, is among five laureates honored for their work benefiting the world through innovation. The winners of the Rolex Awards for Enterprise were announced today in Los Angeles and were chosen based on projects rooted in science, technology, the environment, exploration and cultural heritage.

Wangchuk, of India, is an engineer and teacher from Ladakh. He began developing the artificial glaciers as a classroom project with his students from the Students' Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh Alternative School, according to a release from Rolex. A crowdfunding campaign paid for the first 20-meter-tall glacier, which was built with 2.3 kilometers of pipe.

"I started thinking about things that could make a real impact on people's lives, mainly through meaningful education," he said in a statement. "All these young Ladakhis—95 percent of them—were failing in the educational system owing mainly to their being a cultural and linguistic minority in India."

That first glacier provided fresh water for a village until July. All told, the one glacier provided an extra 1.5 million liters of fresh water for trees, villagers and local monks. Wangchuk will receive $104,000 from the award to expand his project to additional villages.

Some research is being done into how to prevent glacial melt that these villages rely on for drinking water. A study published in 2011 in Nature Geoscience suggested rocks and other debris could be placed on glaciers to slow down the melting process.

California faces a similar, but different, problem with climate change keeping the Sierra Nevada range too warm for a strong snowpack. But impoverished regions like these Himalayan villages don't always get the amount of attention first-world areas receive, yet the problems are just are urgent.

When he isn't innovating, Wangchuk is teaching at a school for students who needed a second chance after failing out of traditional Indian secondary school. He founded the region's alternative school in 1994, and students there learn about solar power and innovation in addition to typical high school studies.

Wangchuk hopes to use the funds from the award to build 20 more glaciers in the region.

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