Ice Stupa : Innovation that can change World
This simple innovation carried out in Ladakh called the “Ice Stupa” has the potential to change the world. The innovation is no rocket science but a clever application of simple Physics that potentially solves major water crisis in Ladakh. It has the potential to be a major innovation in saving the glaciers at a time when due to rising global temperatures, majority of the glacial water are not being put to use and are getting wasted after melting.This can also save the plains from getting flooded by controlling and spreading the melted water onto farms and surrounding areas for irrigation purposes.
This clever innovation is the brain child of a mechanical engineer and scientist Sonam Wangchuk.
The Ice Stupa works like this:
Ladakh, a region that has infertile land relies heavily on glacial water for irrigation purposes. Earlier artificial glacial projects were carried out but it was done so at higher altitudes and did not solve any problem that villagers places. The ingenuity of Sonam’s intervention was to build the stupas near the village. The temperature near the village was low enough to keep the water frozen but how could you bring such large amounts of water of the glaciers from such great heights and use them to build stupas??The answer was gravitation.
The run off water of the glaciers was diverted to the village using plastic pipes to the place where the stupas were to be built. As a result of intense pressure developed because of the descent of the water from great altitude, when they came out of the pipes the water spurted out and sprayed. The picture is shown below:
When the water came out with high pressure , owing to the temperature being nearly -25 celsius during cold winters, they instantly transformed into snow as soon as the came in contact with the air, and thus started falling around the pipes and over the time collected to form the structure of a stupa. As Glaciers are spread out they tend to melt faster, when ice is in compact form the melting process is slower as less of its surface area is subjected to the heat of the sun, the water melted five times slower and gave the essential water required for the farmers to cultivate their crops during the spring season.
Each stupa has the economic potential of 8 Cr rupees, and with rising global temperatures and vast amount of glacial water run off, this Indian jugaad can be seen as a case study on how to use the run off for productive use and stop the flooding in plains.
