water conservation
Ice Stupa Competition
Sonam Wangchuk has come up with an approach for promoting the effective conservation of scarce water resources in Ladakh. In 2014, the well-known Ladakhi engineer and his students developed a way for villages to store water from the snows and rains of winter until the planting season of spring when it is really needed. They […]
A University for Ladakh
Sonam Wangchuk, a visionary Ladakhi engineer, won a prestigious international prize for his ice stupa design in mid-November and announced two weeks later that the money would help fund a new university. His intention is that Ladakhis, at the first university to be built in their section of India, should themselves develop innovative solutions to […]
Ice Stupas in Ladakh
Five years ago, news stories cited Chewang Norphel for figuring out a smart way to preserve water for Ladakhi farmers, despite increasingly arid climate conditions in their region. The approach developed by the then 74-year old former civil engineer—building artificial glaciers in the high country in order to preserve water into the late spring for […]
