A Monk & A Professor – Water Warrior

Today, 1 in 10 people lack access to safe water; 1 in 3 people lack access to a toilet.
Simply put, water scarcity is either the lack of enough water (quantity) or lack of access to safe water (quality).
The problem of water scarcity is a growing one.
Fresh water sustains human life and is vital for human health.
It is estimated that 783 million people do not have access to clean water and over 1.7 billion people are currently living in river basins where water use exceeds recharge.
The challenge we face now is how to effectively conserve, manage, and distribute the water we have ; “A Monk Engineer Who Is Creating Ice Stupas To Solve The Water Problems Of People In Ladakh” Sonam Wangchuk had been inspired by Chewang Norphel’s work of creating artificial glaciers.
So when he saw people struggling to meet their basic water requirements in Ladakh, he came up with a solution of creating vertical ice stupas to store water for a longer time.
The key to human settlement in this cold desert is the art of diverting water from the streams through meticulously built canals toward deserts to grow crops like barley, wheat, vegetables and trees like apricots, apples, willow and poplar.
The Karez System in Bidar One of the most unique features of Bidar is the historic ‘Karez’ system (also known as Qanat) which is a water harnessing technology that originated in Iran/Persia.
The Karez was probably directed towards developing infrastructure for a village at Naubad.

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