NEWS

Climate Change: The “Highest Village in the World” is Almost Out of Water

By Craig Lewis | | Buddhistdoor Global

As the world continues to feel the profound effects of climate change in increasing orders magnitude, remote and vulnerable communities are feeling the brunt of the consequences. The Himalayan village of Komic in India’s mountainous far north, the so-called “world’s highest village,” is no exception. Retreating glaciers and unseasonably weak snowfalls are testing the limits of fragile Himalayan ecosystems and already scarce water resources are approaching crisis point.* Perched at an elevation of 4,587 meters in the arid Spiti Valley in the state of Himachal Pradesh, where India bumps up against Tibet, Komic lays claim to be the highest village in the world accessible by a motorable road. Life for the village’s some 130 residents, who subsist primarily on agriculture, has never been easy, yet recent years have borne witness to increasingly severe droughts as life-bringing glaciers retreat, snowfall declines, and streams and lakes dry up. “Water isn’t an issue so long as we receive snowfall in peak winter. But that is not happening and our glaciers, too, are melting faster than before,” said 56-year-old farmer Nawang Tandup, gesturing toward the dry grey-brown slopes of a mountain some 10-kilometers distant that provides the community’s primary supply of water. “We are now hoping for some divine intervention.” (The Indian Express)

Communities across the valley’s upper catchment area—Chicham, Kibber, Tashigang, Gette, Langza, Hikkim and Demul—are equally vulnerable to what is becoming the new normal as natural resources dwindle. With a population of some 12,000 people, Spiti Valley possesses a distinctly Tibetan culture centered on Vajrayana Buddhism, similar to that found in the Ladakh region of India and nearby Tibet. The valley forms part of a cold Himalayan desert that is cut off from the rest of India for six months of the year when the region’s lofty mountain passes are blocked by snowfall. The Tibetan Plateau is one of the world’s most sensitive and vulnerable climate change hotspots. Home to some 46,000 glaciers, the Tibetan Plateau is sometimes referred to as the Earth’s “third pole” as it contains the largest concentration of frozen water outside of the planet’s two polar regions. These glaciers feed many of the region’s great rivers, including the Ganges, Mekong, and Yangtze, which supply water to a third of the world’s population. Over the past 50 years, temperatures on the Tibetan Plateau have risen by 1.3ºC—three times the global average—causing glaciers to retreat, permafrost to deteriorate, and grasslands to degrade, accompanied by increasing desertification. Some studies have projected that as much as two-thirds of the region’s glaciers could disappear by 2050. Coupled with erratic rain and snowfall, warmer temperatures are taking their toll, with rivers, streams, and lakes rapidly drying up.**