Island settlements in Dal Lake are accessible only by boat or through a network of man-made footbridges. Constructed from locally sourced acacia (kikker) wood, these bridges are built incrementally by residents themselves without any formal planning. Long wooden posts are driven into the lakebed using a heavy wooden mallet known as the paar, then linked by beams and surfaced with planks to form continuous, approximately 6 feet wide walkways that weave through the backwaters. The space beneath them is commonly used for boat parking, and where required, walkways are elevated to allow passage of boats. As lightweight structures on stilts, the footbridges permit water flow, movement, and seasonal fluctuations beneath them. As diffusive infrastructure this network extends connectivity across water without the requirement of hard land reclamation.