118 | Green Roads for Water
FIGURE 6.7
Technique for creating artificial glaciers in mountain areas
Source: MetaMeta (www.roadsforwater.com).
BOX 6.2
Warping dams Warping dams are typically up to 5 meters high, but they can be shorter as well. The development of a warping dam consists of two stages: the land development stage and the consolidation and management stage. The land development stage takes several years (on average three to five years, but sometimes more than 10 years). By then, a warping dam will have collected enough sediment for
farming to begin. When the warping dam is filled with sediment, stabilization is necessary through the creation of controlled water overflow structures. These structures can be created by changing the existing spillways into a circular shape, redesigning the top of the shaft as a spillway, constructing a side spillway, or designing an earth dam as an overflow dam (van Steenbergen et al. 2011).
guide such meltwater. In this way, poor soils are enriched with fertile fine silt (or warp) or by trapping sediment behind warping dams built on gullies or steep valleys to intercept sediments and thereby create new land terraces (see box 6.2). Improved Moisture Retention on Hill Slopes
The changes that come with road construction are described in the section titled “Changing the Mountain Environment” and include opened hill slopes and exposure of the earth to more sunlight and wind. These changes add up to a severe impact on the microclimate that could affect forest stands or the quality of the pasture. The impact on the microclimate will be less water retention, resulting in a loss of moisture, an increase in temperature, and more desiccating effects. The loss of moisture should be counterbalanced by measures that improve the capacity of the road-affected area to retain moisture, which will also
