ABERDEEN University is working with partners to enhance an innovation to provide vital water in some of the planet’s most arid places.

The Ice Stupa, invented by engineer Sonam Wangchuk in Ladakh, India in 2013, is an artificial glacier used for storing winter water for use in the months when meltwater is scarce.

The Ice Stupa project has grown in the years since and has received international acclaim.

Frequent and extended droughts are threatening the life-sustaining crops cultivated in some of the coldest and driest parts of the world. The Cryosphere and Climate Change research group of the University of Aberdeen, in collaboration with the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, has shown that “glacier shrinkage” in Ladakh, northern India, has increased at a dramatic pace over the last two decades.

For Ladakh, a “cold desert” with very little precipitations, the Ice Stupas have become a lifeline – providing essential meltwater to extend the otherwise very limited crop growing season by several weeks. They are built next to where the water is needed most, near fields.

They can release millions of litres of water each year, while the size and shape of the ice stupas make them particularly efficient, inexpensive, and easy to maintain.

However, the project is still in its infancy and more work is needed – from technical aspects such as ways to avoid water freezing in the pipelines, to a better understanding of local micro-climates and an improved distribution of water.

The University of Aberdeen, funded by the Scottish Funding Council, is working to establish a long-lasting collaboration with the local ice stupa team and academic colleagues in India to provide some of the answers to these questions.

Professor Matteo Spagnolo, of the University of Aberdeen’s Cryosphere and Climate Change Research Group, said: “Our research has shown that mountain glaciers in Ladakh are retreating at an increasing rate, and so it is clear that interventions such as Ice Stupas are essential.”