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‘No end’ expected to devastation from water-related emergencies, says UN weather agency
The world’s water resources face growing pressure from climate change while emergencies involving the vital resource are increasingly impacting lives and livelihoods, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
“Water-related hazards continue to cause major devastation this year,” said Celeste Saulo, WMO Secretary-General. “The latest examples are the devastating monsoon flooding in Pakistan, floods in South Sudan and the deadly flash-floods in the Indonesian island of Bali. And unfortunately, we see no end to this trend.”
Ms. Saulo noted that these emergencies have been happening amid increasingly warm air temperatures, which allow more water to be held in the atmosphere leading to heavier rainfall.
Her comments coincided with the publication of a new WMO report on the state of the world’s waterways, snow and ice which notes that 2024 was the hottest in 175 years of observation, with the annual mean surface temperature reaching 1.55 °C above the pre-industrial baseline from 1850 to 1900.
Against this backdrop in September 2024, central and eastern Europe experienced devastating flash-floods caused by deadly Storm Boris which uprooted tens of thousands of people. Similar disasters are likely to happen more often, even though they should - in theory - be extremely rare, the UN agency maintained.
“In the Czech Republic, several rivers had such an extreme flood event that actually statistically should only occur every 100 years,” said Stefan Uhlenbrook, WMO Director of Hydrology, Water and Cryosphere Division. “A ‘century event’ happened…unfortunately, statistics show that these extreme events might come even more frequent.”
Another example of the increasingly erratic behaviour of the world’s water cycle is the extremely heavy rainfall that has affected parts of Himachal Pradesh or Jammu and Kashmir. “The region saw extremely heavy rainfall when it was not expected; the monsoon came early,” said Sulagna Mishra, WMO Scientific Officer. “So, this is what we are talking about as the unpredictability of the system is growing, more and more.”
Turning to the impact of last year’s pronounced El Niño weather phenomenon, WMO’s report indicates that it contributed to severe drought in the Amazon basin last year. Equally, northwest Mexico and the northern part of North America saw below-average rainfall, as did southern and southeastern Africa. “El Niño at the start of 2024 played a role,” explained Ms. Saulo, “but scientific evidence shows that our changing climate and rising temperatures lead to more extreme events, both droughts and floods.”
Among the WMO report’s other findings, it confirms wetter-than-normal conditions over central-western Africa, Lake Victoria in Africa, Kazakhstan and southern Russia, central Europe, Pakistan and northern India, southern Iran and north-eastern China in 2024.
One of the key messages of the UN agency report is that what happens to the water cycle in one part of the world has a direct bearing on another.
“It's not local,” insisted Ms. Mishra. “You see the…impact of melting glaciers in the Arctic and these are impacting the monsoons through the large circulation patterns. It is impacting the monsoon in Asia or we see hurricanes in the Pacific and we know through studies that these are all connected.”
Melting glaciers continue to be a major concern for meteorologists because of the speed at which they are disappearing and their existential threat to communities downstream and in coastal areas.
“In terms of glaciers, 2024 was the third straight year with widespread glacial loss across all regions,” Ms. Saulo said. “Glaciers lost 450 gigatonnes, this is the equivalent of a huge block of ice seven kilometres in height, seven kilometres wide and seven kilometres deep, or 180 million Olympic swimming pools, enough to add about 1.2 millimetres to global sea level, increasing the risk of floods for hundreds of millions of people on the coasts.”
The report also highlights the critical need for improved data-sharing on streamflow, groundwater, soil moisture and water quality, which remain heavily under-monitored.
The WMO's 2024 State of Global Water Resources report is a WMO flagship product that presents an overall picture of available water resources globally, allowing for the assessment of status of water resources.
The report highlights a critical need for more investment, international collaboration, improved monitoring and data sharing, to improve early warning.
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STORY: WMO - world water monitor
TRT: 3’00”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH/ NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 18 SEPTEMBER 2025 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
Speaker:
- Celeste Saulo, WMO Secretary-General
- Stefan Uhlenbrook, WMO Director of Hydrology, Water and Cryosphere Division
- Sulagna Mishra, WMO Scientific Officer
SHOTLIST
- Exterior wide shot: Palais des Nations, flag alley.
- Wide, podium speakers, UN Geneva Press room.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Celeste Saulo: “Unfortunately, water-related hazards continue to cause major devastation this year; the latest examples are the devastating monsoon flooding in Pakistan, floods in South Sudan and the deadly flash-floods in the Indonesian island of Bali. And unfortunately, we see no end to this trend.”
- Wide, podium speakers.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Stefan Uhlenbrook: “In the Czech Republic, several rivers had such an extreme flood event that actually statistically should only occur every 100 years. But in this year, we exceeded this at a number of river basins, so it's kind of a really, a century event happened in this and, unfortunately, statistics show that these extreme events might come even more frequent.”
- Medium, podium speakers, TV screens showing speaker.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Sulagna Mishra: “We mentioned erratic behaviour of the water cycle. This is one such example of the erratic behaviour that parts of Himachal Pradesh or Jammu Kashmir in the region saw extremely heavy rainfall when it was not expected; the monsoon came early and it was extremely heavy. So, this is what we are talking about as the unpredictability of the system is growing, more and more.”
- Wide, journalists, one taking video with mobile phone.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Celeste Saulo: “The Amazon Basin and other parts of South America, as well as southern Africa, were gripped by severe drought. On the contrary, it was very wet in central, western and eastern Africa, parts of Asia and Central Europe.”
- Medium, TV journalist.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Sulagna Mishra: “It's not local, you see the impact of teleconnections, for example, impact of melting glaciers in the Arctic and these are impacting the monsoons through the large circulation patterns. It is impacting the monsoon in Asia or we see hurricanes in the Pacific and we know through studies that these are all connected.”
- Medium, journalists.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Celeste Saulo: “In terms of glaciers, 2024 was the third straight year with widespread glacial loss across all regions. Glaciers lost 450 gigatonnes, this is the equivalent of a huge block of ice seven kilometres in height, seven kilometres wide and seven kilometres deep, or 180 million Olympic swimming pools, enough to add about 1.2 millimetres to global sea level, increasing the risk of floods for hundreds of millions of people on the coasts.”
- Wide, Press room technician, UN logo reflected in screen.
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New data showing that rivers were at their lowest level for decades last year provides further evidence that the climate crisis is real and countries must act immediately to protect themselves from the increasing threat to communities and livelihoods, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
The key findings from WMO’s State of Global Water Resources 2025 report covering the hydrological cycle and extreme events in the five-year period to last year:
- 2025 was one of driest years for river discharge in 35 years
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Highlighting the long-term decline in the Earth’s freshwater storage and glacier melt, WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo explained that the planet’s water reserves used to act as a planetary “savings account” that absorbed the occasional dry season, 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 in Geneva.
Groundwater reserves are equally stretched and have been in decline since 2014, WMO’s report states, with nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide showing levels lower than the historical norm and indicating a shift “further toward deficit…not recovery”.
“At the same time, we are seeing more water-related disasters,” Ms. Saulo said, while also stressing that the currently strengthening El Niño “will increase the risk of drought in some areas, and flooding in others”.
Glaciers disappearing
In 2025, for the fourth consecutive year, every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass, leading to short-term hazards including floods and long-term water insecurity, according to WMO.
Responding to a question about whether the changing global water cycle might have contributed to the deadly Nepal-China flooding disaster, Ms. Saulo explained that melting ice and rock was just one factor in the chain of events that ultimately sent a massive and deadly wall of water and debris downstream on 26 August, killing at least 1,367 people.
“You asked if it could happen again? Absolutely; the problem in this region is that there’s 63,700 glaciers at the last count,” she told a Press Conference in Geneva. “Even if you’re looking with remote sensing with satellites at these glaciers, you might see some faults, you might see some slight shifting, that does not mean necessarily catastrophic collapse. So, in order to plan for this, it’s very, very difficult. But the international community is looking very hard at ways in which we can bring people together to solve some of these monitoring issues.”
Data indicates that glaciers shrank between 2023 and 2025 with cumulative losses of 1,400 gigatonnes of water – or about one third of annual fresh water needs.
Every major glacier region on Earth lost ice for the fourth consecutive year.
“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, WMO’s Director of Hydrology and Cryosphere.
Some regions with smaller glaciers such as Central Europe, the Caucasus, the western Canada and the United States may already have reached “peak water”, Mr. Jenkinson warned.
“After this point, the glacier gives less meltwater each year simply because there is less ice left to melt. That matters for every community downstream that relies on water during hot, dry summers,” he explained.
Narelle van der Wel, WMO’s Head of Cryosphere Monitoring, Predictions and Services, stressed that while some further glacier loss is unavoidable, the eventual scale of the decline is not predetermined.
“Some glacier loss is inevitable, but total loss of glaciers is not yet inevitable,” she said, pointing to emissions reductions as central to limiting future losses.
Preparing for moving baselines
The report does not attribute every observed change to climate change alone. WMO says pressure on water resources and natural variability also contribute.
Mr. Jenkinson said governments need to prepare for “moving baselines” as historical patterns become less reliable.
“The situation 30 years ago is not where we are today,” he said. Countries, he added, need to prepare “for those changes that have really already arrived”.
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