GENEVA, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Rivers around the world had one of the driest years in more than three decades in 2025, according to a new report released by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on Thursday. The report warns of a continuation of the long-term decline in freshwater storage and glacier retreat, trends with serious implications for the future of the planet, its people and economies.
The WMO State of Global Water Resources Report shows that the water cycle has become more erratic and unpredictable, swinging between too little and too much. The past seven years have seen the fewest rivers with "normal" flows since 1991.
For the seventh year in a row, the number of river basins with "normal" conditions was in a clear minority: ranging between 34 percent and 38 percent, compared to an average of 46 percent between 1991 and 2020.
Terrestrial water storage -- the total amount of water stored in groundwater, lakes and rivers, soil moisture, vegetation and ice and snow -- has been in decline since the mid-2010s.
WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said that the planet's water reserves used to act as a "savings account" that absorbed the occasional dry season, thereby avoiding a water crisis. "One of the central stories of the 2025 report is what is happening to that savings account. And the simple answer is that we are depleting it," she told journalists at the launch of the report in Geneva.
The year 2025 marked the fourth consecutive year with widespread glacier loss across all regions, leading to short-term hazards such as flooding, and water insecurity in the long term. Between 2023 and 2025, glaciers lost mass in each reporting year with cumulative global glacier mass loss at 1400 gigatons of water. This is roughly equal to about one third of annual freshwater withdrawals.
"All 19 glacier regions around the globe lost ice; in Central Asia, Iceland, the Russian Arctic, and western Canada and the United States. It was among the three worst years on record," said Wayne Jenkinson, the WMO's Director of Hydrology and Cryosphere, at the conference.
In each of the last five years, National Meteorological and Hydrological Services around the globe have reported record-breaking floods and droughts. Some places have had no recovery time between one event and the next, the report noted.
"Water 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, the exact function WMO exists to perform," said Saulo. ■
