State of the world’s water resources 2024 – alarming WMO report

Water is still either too little or too much, says the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The report, published in September, summarizes the state of the world’s water resources in 2024, highlighting the severity of extreme hydrological events and their socioeconomic consequences. The publication was widely echoed in the global media and became the basis for spinning black scenarios for the future.

Why do we need to know more about water?

The State of Global Water Resources 2024 report is addressed to government officials, investors, hydrologists, climatologists and international water security organizations. It is also addressed to the media and the public at large – in a word, everyone who is interested in how the state of global water resources is shaping up under the impact of climate change.

The authors undertook a comprehensive assessment of rivers, lakes, groundwater, snow cover and glacier volume, as well as soil moisture, to determine the level of freshwater availability in different regions of the world. This is important because 2024 was the hottest year in the 175-year history of meteorological observations, with average annual surface temperatures 1.55°C above pre-industrial levels.

The first half of the year was strongly influenced by the El Niño phenomenon, which resulted in a prolonged drought in the northern part of South America and the southern part of Africa. Low levels of precipitation also made their mark in North America, while in Midwestern Africa, Russia, Central Europe and parts of the Indochina Peninsula, rainfall totals exceeded multi-year averages.

What was the shape of the world’s water resources in 2024.

WMO experts analyzed 986 catchments larger than 10,000 square ^kilometers and concluded that only in 30 percent of them average flows corresponded to multi-year norms. There was less water in 30 percent of the catchments and more water in 30 percent, which perfectly illustrates the intensification of extreme weather events. The drought particularly affected the Amazon, Parana, Orinoco, Zambezi, Limpopo and Okavango river basins – rivers on which the well-being of many poor societies depends.

Low water levels were also observed in the economically important reservoirs of Central and West Africa and in lakes in the Middle East and Central Asia. The WMO notes that water in almost all of the lakes selected for analysis was significantly warmer in July than the multi-year norms.

As for the state of the world’s groundwater resources, levels were normal at 38 percent of the stations surveyed, lower at 25 percent and higher at 37 percent than the multi-year average. Aquifer replenishment compared to the previous year was observed in parts of Europe, India, Florida and southern Brazil. Severe groundwater shortages, however, were reported in southern Europe, the United States and Mexico, as well as in parts of Africa, South America and southern Australia. A severe soil moisture deficit was noticeable in most South American and African catchments.

Snow and ice are constantly decreasing

The WMO analysis also covers the state of the world’s solid water resources, which are unequivocally becoming scarce. The year 2024 was the third year in a row when an unambiguous loss of ice volume was registered in all glaciated regions of the Earth. The total annual loss is estimated at 450 Gt, equivalent to 1.2 mm of sea level rise. Experts suggest that most areas with small glaciers are likely to have already passed the peak point of water resources, the moment of maximum annual melting.

The report pays special attention to glaciers in Colombia, which are described as tropical due to their proximity to the equator. The exceptionally strong impact of El Niño in late 2023 and early 2024 caused them to melt intensely – the decrease in total mass on an annual basis is estimated at 5 percent, raising serious concerns about the future of local rivers.

Also of concern are the snow deficits observed primarily in Central and Eastern Europe and North America. On the other hand, in Central Asia, an above-average seasonal maximum snow mass, combined with an unusually warm March, caused flooding in northern Kazakhstan and neighboring regions of the Russian Federation.

The most important hydrological events of the past year

Analysis of the state of the world’s water resources cannot be conducted in isolation from disasters that depend directly on the hydrological cycle and generate enormous social, economic and ecological losses. Last year, they particularly affected Africa, where unusually heavy rainfall caused the deaths of 2,500 people, the displacement of 4 million and massive damage to infrastructure.

Europe experienced the most intense flooding since 2013, with 1/3 of all rivers in the Old Continent experiencing high states. In the Asia-Pacific region, record heavy rainfall and destructive tropical cyclones resulted in more than 1,000 deaths.

The co-occurrence of the most extreme hydrological events is best demonstrated by the following facts:

• In the United States, Hurricane Helene caused 219 deaths and $79.5 billion in losses. The drought in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas was associated with 100 deaths and losses of $5.5 billion.
• The ongoing drought has covered 59 percent of Brazil’s territory since 2023, directly affecting 1.2 million citizens. Meanwhile, in the Rio Grande do Sul basin, the worst flooding in eight decades has cost 183 people their lives.

The WMO report notes the unprecedented nature of last year’s floods in Europe, Africa and Asia and the scale of the phenomena accompanying them, including mudslides. It is a sign of the times, of sorts, that the emergence of heavy rainfall on areas that have been plagued by drought for decades – Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. NASA satellite images show that many Saharan lakes, usually completely dry, have filled up to half full of water. The repercussions of such far-reaching changes are difficult to imagine.

The long-term trends described in the report suggest that globally, the water cycle is clearly accelerating. According to Stefan Uhlenbrook, director of the hydrology department, the future is increasingly difficult to predict, and average flows in the world’s rivers are either too high or too low.

WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo commented on the latest reports with the words: Water sustains our societies, fuels our economies and stabilizes our ecosystems. But the world’s water resources are under increasing pressure, while escalating water-related threats are having a growing impact on lives and livelihoods. Summing up the importance of the report, she added: Reliable, evidence-based information is more important today than ever before, because we cannot manage what we do not measure.

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In the article, I used:

World Meteorological Organization (WMO). State of Global Water Resources 2024 (WMO-No. 1380)., Geneva, 2025. DOI: https://doi.org/10.59327/WMO/WATER/2024