Glacial Grafting and the Karakoram Anomaly: Bridging Indigenous Knowledge and Hydrologic Science for Meltwater Preservation

While glaciers worldwide are retreating due to anthropogenic climate change, the Hunza region of Northern Pakistan presents a striking exception: the Karakoram Anomaly, where glaciers have remained stable or are even advancing (Farinotti et al., 2020). At the same time, communities in the region have practiced glacial grafting for centuries. During this traditional practice, local experts extract pieces of ice from contrasting parts of a glaciers, light and dark, male and female, and bring them together and seed them in carefully chosen places in a specific ritual, also called glacial marriage (Ahmad, 2020). Meanwhile this region is increasingly subject both to local water insecurity (Haq et al., 2025) and glacier outburst flooding (Ali, 2024), necessitating a rethinking of local water management approaches (Lund et al., 2023). Our project brings together a multifaceted approach to explore the current situation bringing together ethnographic, hydrologic, and remote sensing approaches with the goal to on one hand collaborated with the local communities to develop immediate monitoring of melt water resources and to explore what the international glacier community can learn from the indigenous practices of the Hunza region. Although still in our preliminary phase, we will present our background research exploring the possibility that community-driven practices may contribute, in part, to the persistence of glaciers in this region, while also shaping community resilience in the face of water scarcity and downstream risks. By combining participatory documentary filmmaking, and innovative monitoring methods, we aim to bridge diverse knowledge systems and foster dialogue between mountain communities and cultural, ecological, and hydrological global scientific networks.