The WMO State of Global Water Resources report is a comprehensive science-based annual assessment of the hydrological cycle and extreme events in 2025 and over the past five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Geneva, Switzerland, 17 September 2026 (WMO) \u2013 Rivers across the globe in 2025 had one of the driest years in more than three decades, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). It shows a continuation of the long-term decline in Earth\u2019s freshwater storage and in glacier retreat – trends with serious implications for people and economies in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The WMO State of Global Water Resources Report<\/a> shows that the water cycle has become more erratic and unpredictable, swinging between too little or too much. The past seven years have seen the fewest rivers with \u201cnormal\u201d flows since 1991.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Asia and Africa together accounted for at least half of all recorded water-related extreme events and more than 80% of reported associated deaths over the past five years, it says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The report provides a comprehensive, science-based assessment of the entire water cycle loop, including river discharge, groundwater, evapotranspiration, land water storage, and snow and ice, as well as high-impact events. It covers the year 2025 and summarizes findings of the past five years since it was first published.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some parts of this cycle are fast \u2013 such as precipitation, river flow, soil moisture \u2013 they respond to weather within days or weeks. Others, like groundwater, glaciers and seasonal snowpack, are slow, they accumulate or deplete over seasons to decades or longer. Traditionally these slow reserves have acted as the planet’s savings account: a buffer that absorbs bad years so that a single drought or a single dry season does not translate directly into a water crisis,\u201d said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are depleting that savings account. Global terrestrial water storage has shown a declining trend since 2014\u20132016 – a persistent, decade-long signal. For the fourth consecutive year, every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass. Groundwater tells a similar story: nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide showed conditions outside the historical norm in 2025, and the balance shifted further toward deficit compared with 2024, not toward recovery,\u201d said Celeste Saulo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAt the same time, we are seeing more water-related disasters. The strengthening El Ni\u00f1o will increase the risk of drought in some areas, and flooding in others,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWater respects no borders. A river basin’s water balance depends on what happens in another country. A glacier’s retreat in one country reshapes water availability for populations hundreds of kilometers downstream. This is precisely why we need shared data, shared standards, and shared early warning \u2014 the exact function WMO exists to perform,\u201d said Celeste Saulo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dozens of experts from National Meteorological and Hydrological Services, data centres, researchers and partner institutions shared in situ observations, model outputs and space-based data and contributed to the report, which has expanded from three to 15 hydrological variables since the first edition in 2021. Country coverage has greatly expanded. However, Africa and Asia are still among the least represented regions in terms of hydrological observations in the report, even though they are most affected by extremes.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe report highlights some major areas of concern:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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