When the Ice Is Gone: Preparing Gilgit Baltistan for a Future Beyond Its Glaciers
“When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.”
Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack
Imagine waking up one morning in Gilgit Baltistan and looking toward the mountains, only to find that the glaciers that shaped this landscape are gone. The rivers still flow. The valleys are still home to people. The mountains still stand. But something fundamental has changed.
For generations, the glaciers here have been far more than frozen scenery. They are a source of freshwater for our fields, our ecosystems, our hydropower, and our communities. But as the climate changes and the ice retreats, the question is no longer only what we are losing today. It is what we must prepare for tomorrow.
The question is no longer only what we are losing today. It is what we must prepare for tomorrow.
Why this matters to us?
Gilgit-Baltistan sits where the Karakoram, Himalaya, and Hindu Kush meet, and it holds thousands of glaciers, among the largest concentrations of ice outside the polar regions. That ice feeds the Indus River, which sustains millions of people downstream. Closer to home, it feeds the streams and channels that carry water to our villages.
In Hunza, where I come from, this is not abstract. Our terraced fields exist because generations of people learned to guide glacial meltwater through hand-built channels, known locally as kuhls. Our orchards, our harvests, and our way of life depend on that water arriving at the right time, in the right amount.
A complicated picture
Here the story gets more complex. The Karakoram is known for what scientists call the “Karakoram anomaly” while glaciers in many mountain ranges have been shrinking, some Karakoram glaciers have remained stable or even advanced slightly. This is not a reason for comfort. It doesn’t mean climate change has spared us. It means our mountains are behaving in ways that are harder to predict, and unpredictability is its own kind of risk.
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We have already seen what that risk looks like. Glacial lake outburst floods, where water trapped behind ice or debris suddenly breaks free, are a growing danger in northern Pakistan. (In 2022), the flooding linked to the Shisper glacier in Hunza damaged the Hassanabad bridge on the Karakoram Highway and cut off communities. Warmer temperatures also shift the timing of melt, which can mean too much water at the wrong time, and too little when crops need it most.
What would we do without the ice?
What would Gilgit Baltistan look like if its people could no longer depend on glaciers as they do now? How would we secure water, grow food, and produce energy?
“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.”
Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey
For those of us who live beside these mountains, that isn’t poetry. It is daily life. And preparing for a different future does not have to start with something enormous. It can start with practical steps:
- Water storage and efficiency. Community-level storage, lined channels that lose less water, and drip irrigation can stretch every drop further.
- Early warning systems. Monitoring glacial lakes and alerting downstream villages can save lives when a flood comes.
- Diverse energy sources. Hydropower is central to the region, but relying on it alone is risky if river flows change. Solar can help fill the gap.
- Local knowledge and science together. Elders who have watched these mountains for decades hold observations no dataset can replace. Pairing them with researchers gives us a fuller picture.
- Education. Young people, including the students I teach, should grow up understanding the mountains they live under.
Before the ice is gone
There is a well known proverb
“The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.”
The same is true for adaptation. We cannot wait for the last glacier to disappear before we begin to act.
The glaciers of Gilgit Baltistan may not vanish in one morning, as in the picture I began with. But they are changing, and how well we meet that change depends on what we do while there is still time.
So I’ll ask again are we preparing for that future today, or waiting until the ice is gone?
