FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu expressed concern over the critical decline in global water reserves caused by glacier melt, highlighting Kyrgyzstan’s experience in creating artificial glaciers in Batken region as an effective adaptation method. He shared these views in a recent article.
As noted, the disappearance of glacier cover threatens the food security of around 2 billion people who depend on river systems such as the Indus, Nile, Ganges and Colorado.
In the short term, rapid glacier melt leads to floods, flash floods and landslides. In the long term, however, water sources may disappear entirely, the article says.
Mountain regions, which account for about a quarter of the Earth’s land surface, are warming faster than the global average. This makes 1.2 billion people living in these areas vulnerable to seasonal water shortages for irrigation, potentially resulting in halted food production and large-scale population displacement, Qu Dongyu wrote.
A project in Kyrgyzstan’s Batken region is mentioned in the article, where artificial glaciers are being constructed with FAO support. The structures are created by spraying mountain water during winter, which then gradually melts in the summer months. In Batken, the initiative has made it possible to preserve more than 1.5 million cubic meters of ice, enough to irrigate up to 1,750 hectares of land.
FAO is calling on governments worldwide to strengthen transboundary cooperation and early warning systems. As glacier-fed rivers often cross national borders, the allocation of water resources requires coordinated strategies.
«Water is the most valuable resource, and its availability depends on the preservation of glaciers. Ignoring their rapid melting risks undermining global food and water security,» the FAO Director-General stressed.
