TRADITIONAL WATER MANAGEMENT OF SUBSISTENCE AGRICULTURE SYSTEM IN COLD ARID LADAKH: A REVIEW

Abstract

Ladakh is an extremely harsh and driest inhabited high-altitude region with subsistence economy based on an agro- pastoral system, supporting 80 per cent of its population. Glacio-fluvial processes aided by freeze-thaw weathering have designed the high-altitude landscape of Ladakh for livelihood options. In spite of harsh climatic conditions, people have managed to develop a remarkably productive subsistence agricultural system which relies exclusively on glacier melt water from glaciers, snowfields, and permafrost is the most important source well adapted to this unique and extreme environment. Simultaneously, Ladakhi social structure has developed a community-based approach of utilizing natural resources such as glacier-melt water according to the traditional distribution system, importance of which at present, increases with receding glaciers, impacting livelihood of deep-valley based farming systems. Adoption of location specific scientific interventions is the only ways to take bring back the Ladakh farming from subsistence to a sustainable and utilizing improved micro-irrigation technologies involving policy makers. This chapter deals with the efficient ways to utilize the irrigation resources in a judicious manner and its scenario as to how systems have regulated and facilitated both the agriculture process and the social, cultural and community life organized around farming and related occupations is discussed.