The summer of 2018 might have been eye-opening for Europe in terms of climate change, with wildfires and record-high temperatures, but residents of the Ladakh region in India have been feeling the impact of global warming for a long time.

Situated in the rain-shadow area of the Himalayas Ladakh is a cold, mountainous desert. Water scarcity is the region's biggest problem and their primary source is the melting water from the surrounding glaciers.

Reliant on the water from glacial melt for their yearly harvest and drinking water, the increase in temperature and subsequent rapidity of melting has meant a dangerous decrease in Ladakh's water supply.

Faced with this literal do or die situation Chewang Norphel, a civil engineer from the area, devised what has since been named "artificial glaciers."