Glacier grafting: How an Indigenous art is countering water scarcity

Residents in the northern part of the country are creating artificial glaciers to tackle climate change.

Skardu, Pakistan – As Pakistan grapples with the effects of rising temperatures that are melting its glaciers, residents in the country’s high-altitude Himalayan region have adopted a traditional technique, known as glacier grafting, to counter water scarcity.

Pakistan, home to an estimated 13,000 glaciers, ranks among the top 10 most climate-vulnerable nations, even though it contributes less than one percent of global emissions.

As global warming worsens, the effect of more glaciers melting is “likely to be significant”, Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said last year.

Glacier grafting, locally known as glacier marriage, is a technique that involves “planting” ice at carefully chosen high-altitude locations to create new artificial glaciers – a process that experts say dates back centuries.

The technique involves storing ice fetched from glaciers closer to human settlements amid periods of water scarcity.