UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : WMO - Press conference: State of Global Water Resources Report 2025

Thank you very much for coming, everybody.

I know it was an extra long regular briefing this morning, so we appreciate your effort.

This is the embargoed press conference of the World Meteorological Organisation on the state of the Global Water Resources Report 2025.

We're doing this exceptionally under embargo because it's quite a long, it's quite a complicated report, so hopefully this will give you time to prepare your your stories.

You should have all the embargoed materials already.

If you have any problems accessing the full report or anything, please let me know.

Everything the press releases will be available in all six UN languages.

We already have the French and we hopefully will get the other languages by the end of today and they will all be added to the Trello board.

So without further ado, and please don't panic.

I know there looks to be a lot of us on the podium.

We're not all going to give lengthy, lengthy, lengthy statements, but you will know Professor Celeste Salo, the World Meteorological Organisation Secretary General, she will make some introductory remarks.

And then Robert Wayne Jenkins, whom we know is, is Wayne, he's director of Cryosphere and Hydrology will also talk, talk to you with a few, just a very few slides to help you understand the the water cycle and the state of global water resources.

Then on my left, I'm joined by Doctor Narelle Vandervelle and she is head of the WMO Cryosphere Information and Services Unit.

So if you've got any questions on anything related to the cryosphere, to glaciers, snow, ice, Narelle can hopefully deal with them.

And then on the far left, I have Anastasia Lubanova, who's a scientific officer and she's also available if there's any technical questions.

She coordinated the report and and pulled, pulled it all together.

So without any further ado, I will hand over the floor to to Professor Salah.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much Claire.

Dear members of the media, thank you for attending today and for your interest.

The World Meteorological Organisation is releasing it State of Global Water Resources Report 2025.

It is an annual report.

Now in its fifth year.

It contains more facts and figures and graphs than ever before as we expand the scope and its relevance for decision makers.

But today I don't want to speak about the statistics.

I want to tell you the story of the water cycle.

Water moves through the earth system in a continuous loop.

[Other language spoken]

Some goes into rivers, some into the soil.

Some recharges groundwater, some accumulates as a snow and ice.

Eventually, through evaporation, it returns to the atmosphere and falls again.

Some parts of these cycles, such as precipitation, river flow, soil moisture, are fast.

They respond to weather within hours, days or even weeks.

But others, like groundwater and glaciers, are slow.

They accumulate or decline over seasons to decades or longer.

Traditionally, these slow reserves have acted as the planet's savings account, the buffer that absorbs bad years so that a single drought or a single dry season does not translate directly into 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.

[Other language spoken]

Global terrestrial water storage has shown declining trends in 20/14/2016.

This is not a single bad year, but it's a persistent decade long signal.

For the 4th consecutive years in 2025, every mayor's glaciated region on Earth lost eyes mass.

Several regions with the smaller glaciers, including the Alps, show signs of having past peak water.

This is the point at which glacier can no longer contribute more melt water in a hot year because it has run out of ice to give.

Groundwater levels in many parts of the world are in multi year decline.

Last year was one of the driest year for river discharge in 35 years.

The past seven years have been abnormal river flows.

Water related extreme events continue to devastate communities and economies and are at the heart of the early Warnings for All initiative championed by the UN Secretary General.

Over the past five years, Asia and Africa have accounted for at least half of all reported hydrological extreme events and more than 80% of associated deaths.

And precisely these regions often lack the observations necessary for forecast and early warnings.

The strengthening El Nino will increase the extremes in droughts in some countries and floods in others.

But it is not all bad news.

Some regions showed improvement in 2025.

Parts of South America saw a partial recovery in water storage during 2025 after a severe multi year deficit.

Central and southern Africa maintain much above normal water levels across several major lakes.

There are other examples in the report and you will hear about them from my colleagues at the World Meteorological Organisation.

We always says that weather respects no borders and this is especially true for water.

A river basin is February water upstream often in another country, and a glacial disaster in one country can lead to devastation in another, as we saw with the recent tragedy of China and Nepal.

This is why we need shared data, shared standards and shared early warnings, the exact function WMO exists to perform.

To conclude, we have said it before and we will say it again.

[Other language spoken]

We, we do not measure, we need to monitor and observe the water cycle to stay informed about the state of our precious water reserves, our planet's savings account, and what is what.

And that is what the WMO State of Global Water Resources report is all about.

I thank you very much.

[Other language spoken]

And with that, I will pass the floor to Wayne Jenkinson, who will also make a few remarks and I'll indicate or perhaps Wayne, you could indicate to you on TV when you want the slides to to change.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you, Claire, and thank you, Secretary General.

So dear members of the media, thank you for being here.

So my name, as mentioned is Doctor Wayne Jenkinson.

I'm the director of Hydrology and Cryosphere, WMO.

It's my pleasure to present the State of Global Water Resources Report for 2025 to you today.

That report is now in its fifth year.

It's grown substantially in that time, and the credit for that report belongs to a great many people, and I will come back to that at the end.

So my objective over the next few minutes is to show you what sits behind the messages the Secretary General has just given you.

It's a very visual report, so I will be using a handful of maps and graphs and I hope they will help you in your important work of translating these findings for the public and for decision makers.

[Other language spoken]

So before we look at any map, there's one idea you need because all of the maps and graphics in the report are built on this idea.

So the report does not ask how much water there was.

It asks how this particular year 2025 compares with a particular area or region, what that region normally sees.

So for each location and each variable, whether it's river flow or groundwater level, we take that historical record rank all the years and see where 2025 falls.

If 2025 sits in the in the middle half of the record, it is normal.

Higher than that is above normal and in the top 10% we call much above normal.

That same applies to the dry side, below normal and much below normal.

So normal does not mean good or bad, it means unusual or historically typical.

A below normal year in the Amazon, for instance, still carries far more water than our normal year in the Colorado, and a dry year in the Rhone still carries more water than a normal year on the Jordan, for example.

Also, these reported conditions represent averages for the year 2025, which means that one might see some variability within that year that could be hidden.

For instance, we have seen persistent drought in the western United States and Canada with very low water levels.

It does not mean that one might not see a short term or localised flooding in Montana, for instance.

It's just that the dry conditions dominate the region for that year.

One consequence is important for what follows.

If the climate and water resources were not changing, you would expect roughly half or about 50% of the world's river basins area to be in the normal range on a typical year.

Please keep that in mind.

[Other language spoken]

So this is a global map of river flow in 2025 compared to the period 1991 to 2020.

For every river basin larger than 10,000 square kilometres.

We do not have measurements everywhere, so this map comes from an ensemble of 13 global hydrological models driven by observed weather and checked against river gauges where we have them.

As outlined in the previous slide, orange means the drier than normal and blue and green means wetter.

The first thing you notice is how much orange there is on this map.

Below normal flows covered 36% of the world's basin area.

That makes 2025 one of the driest years for rivers in 35 years.

You see it across much of North America, in the La Plata and South Francisco basins in South America, in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, and in the Nile, Congo and Zambezi basins in Africa.

But it is not dry everywhere.

Flows were above normal across South and Southeast Asia and parts of northern South America and in the western African basins such as Senegal, Niger and Lake Chad.

And if you look at the circle at the bottom left, only 36% of the basin area was in the normal range.

From 1991 to 2020, that average was 46%.

And this is the seventh year in a row with so few rivers in the normal range, between 34 and 38% across that.

As the Secretary General has just said, abnormal is increasingly becoming the new normal.

More and more, our rivers have either too much or too little water.

[Other language spoken]

So this slide shows the secretary general's savings account she mentioned in her remarks.

Terrestrial water storage is all the fresh water held on and under the land added together.

So groundwater, soil moisture, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, snow and ice.

[Other language spoken]

The great satellites detect tiny changes in the Earth's gravity as water moves.

Is the only method to see the whole column of water, including the groundwater that we cannot see from the surface.

In 2025, forty 2% of the land area had below normal storage.

Only 24% was above normal.

You will notice that in many regions such as Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, this map tells the same story as the river map.

This is worth mentioning because it comes from a completely different and independent method satellites, not models.

Where the two maps differ, it is generally because the river responds to this year's rain and not changes to the total water storage.

The water deficits we see from this analysis are in the northern and southwestern North America, Patagonia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, northern India, and parts of China and North Africa.

There are positive signals too much above normal storage continues in central and southern Africa, and the Laplata basin shows signs of partial recovery from its long drought.

But the general direction is clear.

Water stored on land has been declining globally since around 2016.

Groundwater measured in wells where the data it was available tells the same story.

Nearly 2/3 of monitored wells were outside the normal range in 2025, and the balance shifted further towards deficit, not recovery.

[Other language spoken]

Glaciers are an important part of that savings account we've been discussing, and we are drawing them down very quickly.

Each bar on this graph is one year of global glacier mass change.

Blue is an increase in glacier mass.

[Other language spoken]

The deeper the blue, the bigger the gain.

The darker the red, the bigger the loss in night.

In the 1970s and 1980s, glaciers worldwide were fairly close to balance, but since the 1990's the losses have grown and the darkest bars are the more recent ones.

In the 2025 hydrological year, glaciers lost almost 408 gigatons of ice.

That alone adds to about 1.1 millimetre millimetres of global sea level.

Over the three years from 2023 to 2025, glaciers lost around 1400 gigatons.

That's about a third of all the freshwater the world withdraws in a year.

2025 was the 4th year in a row in which 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.

Some regions with smaller glaciers, such as Central Europe, the Caucus, the Western Canada and the United States, may already have reached what we call peak water.

After this point, a glacier gives less melt 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.

[Other language spoken]

So let me summarise the findings of the 2025 State of the Global Water Resources Report in six messages.

2025 was one of the driest years for river flows globally in 35 years.

For the seventh year in a row, fewer rivers had normal flows than in any year between 1991 and 2020.

For the 4th consecutive year, all major glaciers lost ice.

The land is holding less fresh water and has been since the middle of the last decade.

Over the past five years, Asia and Africa were the regions most affected by reported water related disasters, both in the number of events and lives lost.

And finally, to speak about data.

Water data availability has improved a great deal in five years.

For the first report covering 2021, seven countries provided river flow data from 14 stations.

This year, 52 countries provided data from more than 3100 river flow stations and the report has grown from three variables to 15, with 68 countries contributing some water data to the report.

But the data gaps for measuring our water resources remain critical, and these gaps often exist where the extremes are very severe.

Africa and Asia are still among the least represented regions in our observations.

Emerging data sources like satellite observations can become a potential game changer for characterising global water resources and can help in data sparse areas such as these.

However, satellites cannot replace water data collected on the ground and satellites and models, however sophisticated, still need measurements on the ground to validate their findings and to provide water information that the satellites cannot see.

As the Secretary General said, we cannot manage what we do not measure.

[Other language spoken]

None of this would be possible with other institutions on this slide.

First and foremost, we must thank our WMO members and their national Meteorological and hydrological services who share their data with us.

We would also like to thank the data centres, the research institutes, modelling groups and space agencies, some of whom you see here on this slide.

I would also like to thank the team and my division in particular, Anastasia Lubnova next to me here, who coordinated this edition and is with us today in the room of course.

[Other language spoken]

So in closing, what the report shows is that in 2025 and for the past seven years, how water is distributed across the globe is not what we've seen in the previous three decades.

Water is often not where we need it, nor when we need it.

I will end this presentation with a call to action.

We need to redouble our efforts to improve our understanding of water resources globally, but particularly in areas that are the most vulnerable.

Better data shared widely is how we turn understanding into protection for people's lives and well-being.

Thank you very much.

We're happy to take your questions.

Thanks very much.

All right.

And there for those of you who haven't seen it, is the copy, is the, is the report itself.

And as I said, if you've got problems downloading it, please let me know, body hugger, and I know you have and I'll send it to I'll send it to you.

We will be making available Professor Salo's statement with the opening remarks of this press conference because it does differ quite a lot from what's in the press release.

So it's we'll make that available to you.

And if you need the slides also, we can make those available to you.

So I'll now open the floor to questions starting with Christian Erich of the German press agent CDPA.

Thank you very much.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think I did not hear the word climate change in any of the presentations.

I wonder whether you can give us an idea how much climate change has to do with the way water resources have developed and connected to that.

The question of course, we need to curb climate change, but what is the, I mean that's a such a long term project.

What is the mitigation that is possible in the next 5 or 10 or 15 years that would make a big difference.

[Other language spoken]

Maybe I can start answering that question and then I will pass the floor to Wayne.

The, the longitude of the, of the time that we've been using for this report is not as long as what we use for the, for example, for the state of the global climate report is shorter and so.

Specifically in, in, in that, in that question that you, you have just done it's, it's kind of short statistics to to, to speak about climate change.

What we are highlighting here, for example, the report is highlighting in the first section the the last semi decadal trend.

[Other language spoken]

It can be part of a variability.

So we need to be very careful.

But the what we need to stress here is that the, the this short term trend is, is evident.

And maybe when you can clarify a little bit more what are the connections between this and climate change?

Thank you and thank you for the question.

I think we like to stress that there are a number of drivers that that are are if you like responsible for these changes.

So and this isn't an attribution report, it's really observing the data that we've seen over the five years that we've been conducting this analysis.

But certainly we have human clause, human caused climate change as one of the drivers.

Human pressures on water is another, but also natural variability in the system.

All three of these can contribute to the effects that we're seeing on the ground today.

You asked what what we can do in response to these these observations that we're seeing in terms of the water resource availability globally.

I think this report calls for a foundation of information and data upon which sound decisions can be made.

So it represents the status of where we are and the direction that we're heading.

And knowing this can help advise governments on how they prepare, right?

So we encourage the the measuring of our water resources, sharing the information so that we can understand it more fully, forecasting more effectively to prepare, you know, the sinistry people that are that are in the way during floods or droughts and prepare for what are moving baselines.

So clearly where the situation was 30 years ago is not where we are today.

You know, I think governments around the world need to respond to that and prepare for those changes that have really already arrived.

Any concrete suggestion what might be a measure to be taken if this trend continues?

I think, again, I don't think it's W MO's position to direct governments on how they should respond.

But you know, there are mitigating measures that can be taken depending on the on the issue that's being concerned, right?

So if it's drought issues like water management and water storage can can help mitigate.

If there are issues with flooding, then certain precautions like early warnings for all and other adaptive responses can be put in place.

So again, really not the reports scope to prescribe responses, but there are established methods for for preparing for governments to take to prepare.

I'll just give the floor to Narelle on on the cryosphere on glaciers.

[Other language spoken]

I guess I want to point to again the fact that with glaciers, we know that some glacier loss is inevitable, but total loss of glaciers is not yet inevitable.

And and there we have again the story of emission reductions.

But I guess the most important point for this report is to come back to the fact about what we're going to do about having the information for the planning, for the early warning sharing amongst our members, but also with the research community who does a lot of work on glaciers and with whom we, you know, really do need to connect very well in order to understand what is happening and to address not only water resources, but glacier hazards and, and the entire picture that is affecting communities.

I think if you want to look for climate, the best source is the IPCC assessment reports.

And if you go to that and you look between what we're looking for, for glaciers, they're pointing to around, if we look at a low emission scenario, around 18% loss from 21st century levels of glaciers.

And I think that points to the climate impact.

Now what we're going to do about it is a is a different story.

And I think that is what Wayne said going back to, to governments and, and, and looking at different, the ways that we can deal with the impact of these sort of changes that we're seeing.

But I, I think from the report where it says 7 years out of seven on, on glacier loss.

And I think this is this is significant.

So we'll have Agnes from AFP in the room and then we've got a couple of questions online as well.

So the French news agency, yes.

Hi everybody.

Thank you for taking my question.

You have mentioned the Nepal China catastrophe in the presentation and also the fact that there there is some data which are missing in some parts of of the world.

So I was wondering if you have had enough information about, you know, data about this catastrophe, about this region, and if you could explain more in detail how the water cycle shifts has contributed to to this catastrophe.

And do you expect that to to happen again in that region or elsewhere in the world more frequently?

[Other language spoken]

The the sort of Nepal, China disaster was a catastrophic compound crisis.

There were a lot of parts to that puzzle.

And actually this puzzle is being put together by the research community in what I would say was record time.

We know that there was a rock and glacier failure, which may have had many different parts to that.

So one would have been around possible permafrost.

There's a, you know, a melting of ice in rock which makes it less stable.

There may have also been some earthquake seismic activity in the region as well on top of that melting of glacier and whether that made it more susceptible to a fault and putting into that the whole hydrology situation.

This was not a glacial lake outburst flood, but it had some of the same characteristics around pooling of water and massive amount of water and debris coming downslope very, very fast.

You asked if it could happen again.

[Other language spoken]

Certainly The problem in this region is that there's 63, there's 63,700 glaciers at last count.

It means that there is monitoring of some of these glaciers.

But 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 certainly that I, I would say the international community is looking very, very hard at ways in which we can bring people together to, to solve some of these monitoring issues.

But it is incredibly complex.

I would also say that a lot of the the early warnings between the two countries were very good actually in terms of being able to work together, especially in the aftermath of this disaster.

And I think this is encouraging when you bring these countries together to work together.

I think in sharing data, ensuring information, ensuring and sharing early warning signals, this is really, really important and critical and I hope we can emphasise that going forward as well.

OK, thank you for that.

So FA, the Spanish news agency online at Antonio.

Thank you very much.

So you said that 2025 was one of the driest years in the last 35, but I would like to know whether it's possible to be more precise and say it was the first, the second, the third driest.

I also would like to know whether you expect the records for water scarcity that you have recorded in 2025.

Do you think that they can be surpassed this year 2026 that was also marked by by a lot of dry seasons in, in, in, in rivers like in Europe?

[Other language spoken]

Thank you so much for your question.

I think I'll try to respond to your your first question first.

I think it's difficult for us to say with certainty whether it was the the 2nd or the 3rd driest.

So we have been avoiding categorising that's precisely, but it was certainly, you know among the among the driest.

And I might ask you to repeat your second question.

I'm not sure I understood it fully if if that's OK.

Well, my question is that all the data are from 2025, but this year has also been marked by by a scarcity of water in in European rivers, for example.

So do you think the the situation can be even worse in the press conference next year that that recalls what happened this year?

[Other language spoken]

Yeah, thank you very much and thank you for repeating your question.

It's hard to know exactly where this year is going to to land on the scale.

But as you said, we've had record-breaking dry conditions in Europe and similar conditions elsewhere.

So it looks quite worrying at least at least in in the European region and some other regions.

It's difficult to say exactly what that year will bring until the year comes to a close.

And, and we'll certainly have those discussions when we produce the 2026 report this time next year.

But I would say it doesn't, it doesn't seem as though we're, we're heading in a, in a new direction.

Also worth noting that, you know, last year was, was not an only new year.

This, this is an only new year.

So I think the, the impacts that any new may have are being observed and, and we'll have the full accounting of that when the year comes to an end.

But thank you for your question.

So there's a question online from Jeremy Launch from Radio France.

He said he he can't ask it, he can't join the audio, but he's got a question for us to answer.

If the savings account is depleting and glaciers are melting, should we expect a loss in hydropower and particularly here in Switzerland?

So I'm not sure he wants to take that.

Yeah, I think it's, I don't think we can with the analysis done in this report be so prescriptive as to what might happen on a, on a, on a very local layer layer in a particular industry like hydropower production.

So I think that would require require a different sort of analysis and study.

But I think I would say that, you know, we recognise that the hydrological baselines are shifting and that it is in all of our interests to understand how those shifts are affecting our natural resources availability and how we might be able to adapt to reduced increased otherwise changing meteorological conditions that will affect our water resources.

So really not possible for us to respond to that question directly, but it is a, a call for for everyone to spend take a closer look at at those changes because as your question points out, the the impacts could be, could be, could be quite severe in many areas and in many industries.

So thank you, FA, you still have your hand up.

Is that an old hand or a new question, Antonio, it's a new question is I wonder if you have any information on which major rivers around the world reach record low levels of, of flow last year or or this year?

Thank you, Antonio for your question.

I I can answer for this year it's Rhine River, Paul Loire, so rivers in, in Europe and for last year.

Maybe we can get back to you on this.

[Other language spoken]

We'll we'll, we'll get, we'll get back to you Antonio on, on, on that.

We'll do a bit of research.

[Other language spoken]

I think if there are no further questions, I know UNT VS very busy with the Human Rights Council and we're very, very grateful for two for hosting.

As just a reminder, this is under embargo until 6:00 AM Central European time on Thursday.

And thank you very much for coming.

[Other language spoken]