WMO: With the global hydrological cycle out of control, more early warnings needed

WMO: Global water cycle is out of control, more early warnings needed

The earth’s water cycle is spinning out of balance and human activity is to blame, the UN Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday, as it called for increased early warnings and more coordinated water management policies.

“The key message is that the global hydrological cycle is changing and many of the impacts of climate change they are felt through water, flooding, drought, and also melting of glaciers,” said Prof. Petteri Taalas, WMO Secretary-General.

He added that “about half of the world has experienced an increase of flooding events and about one-third of the planet has been facing an increase of drought events. We know that one degree of warming of the climate means that we have seven per cent more humidity in the atmosphere, which means that it is enhancing the flooding potential.”

Speaking in Geneva, the WMO chief urged greater investment in a “better understanding of the water cycle”, to monitor the resources and to understand “what kind of impacts of climate change we have been facing so far, but especially what we are going to face in the future”.

The WMO State of Global Water Resources Report 2022 builds on a pilot project issued last year and contains more expanded information on important hydrological variables such as groundwater, evaporation, streamflow, terrestrial water storage, soil moisture, cryosphere (frozen water), inflows to reservoirs, and hydrological disasters.

Information was gathered via field observations, satellite-based remote sensing data and numerical modelling simulations to assess water resources at the global scale.

The overwhelming majority of disasters are water-related and so water management and monitoring lies at the heart indicates the report. In the summer of 2022, severe droughts impacted many parts of Europe posing transportation challenges in rivers including the Danube and Rhine and disrupting nuclear electricity production in France owing to the lack of cooling water.

In 2022, snow cover in the Alps - crucial for feeding major rivers such as the Rhine, Danube, Rhone, and Po - was much lower than average. The European Alps witnessed unprecedented levels of glacier mass loss.

“The melting of glaciers is speeding up”, said WMO’s Secretary-General. “In the report we are showing that, for example, the Swiss mountain glaciers, especially the Alpine ones, they have lost about ten percent of their mass last year and this year which is a record.”

In 2022, over 50 per cent of the global catchment areas experienced change from normal river discharge conditions. Most of these areas were drier than normal, while a smaller percentage of basins displayed above or much above normal conditions. This was similar to 2021, according to the report.

“We will have challenges to get water for agriculture, for human beings, industry, and also for hydropower production,” said Prof. Taalas. “We also know that the warming of rivers and waters in general is causing problems for power production.”

“More than 70 per cent of the water that is used by humans is used for agriculture and to produce food and therefore absolutely critical for food and nutrition security,” said Stefan Uhlenbrook, WMO’s Director of Water and Cryosphere department. “In some countries it is even more than 90 per cent of all the water withdrawals from the systems, so the water supply is actually used for food production. Drinking water is globally roughly 10 to 12 per cent of the water that is used for the direct human consumption or domestic use.”

Currently, 3.6 billion people face inadequate access to water at least a month per year and this is expected to increase to more than five billion by 2050, according to UN Water.
“What is the solution? We need to manage the demand. Using 90 per cent of the water withdrawals for agriculture in largely inefficient irrigation systems is not the way forward,” said Mr. Uhlenbrook. “We need to think about more efficient irrigation technology. We need to think about: only irrigate where necessary, think about which crops are produced there. For instance, very thirsty, very water intensive crops to grow them in the middle of the desert is maybe economically still viable but environmentally not sustainable anymore.”

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WMO: With the global hydrological cycle out of control, more early warnings needed

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