General News
UN Raises Alarm Over Depleting Global Water Reserves, Erratic Water Cycle
By Iyojo Ameh
The United Nations has raised the alarm over the growing instability of the global water cycle, warning that the world is simultaneously facing declining freshwater reserves and increasingly extreme swings between drought and flooding.
The warning came from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in its annual State of Global Water Resources report, which revealed that 2025 was among the driest years for the world’s rivers in more than three decades.
The report said glaciers shrank across all regions last year, while groundwater levels in several parts of the world continued to record multi-year declines. It added that the Earth’s overall freshwater storage has remained on a downward trend for a decade.
WMO Secretary-General, Celeste Saulo, said the depletion of groundwater and glaciers was particularly worrying because the resources traditionally functioned as the planet’s “savings account”, providing a buffer during droughts and dry seasons.
“They have served as a buffer that absorbs bad years so that a single drought or a single dry season does not translate directly into a water crisis,” Saulo told reporters.
“Now, we are depleting that savings account. We are spending our reserves.”
The report estimated that glaciers lost a cumulative 1,400 gigatonnes of water between 2023 and 2025. The volume is roughly equivalent to the water required to fill 560 million Olympic-sized swimming pools and about one-third of the world’s annual freshwater withdrawals.
Saulo said groundwater was also showing worrying signs of stress, noting that nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide recorded conditions outside their historical norms in 2025.
The deterioration is occurring alongside an increase in water-related disasters, with the WMO warning that the strengthening El Niño pattern could worsen the situation by increasing drought risks in some areas and flooding in others.
El Niño is the warm phase of a natural climate cycle that occurs every two to seven years and is associated with above-average Pacific Ocean temperatures, changes in global winds and altered rainfall patterns.
The WMO said rivers worldwide were already experiencing abnormal conditions before the latest El Niño pattern intensified. In 2025, global rivers recorded one of their three driest years in 35 years.
For the seventh consecutive year, normal river flows were recorded in only a minority of monitored basins. About 36 per cent experienced normal flows, while another 36 per cent recorded below-normal discharge and 21 per cent recorded above-normal conditions.
The UN agency called for stronger international cooperation, improved water monitoring and greater access to reliable data to help countries respond to changing water conditions.
Saulo stressed that water security could not be addressed within national boundaries alone, noting that rivers and other water systems frequently cross borders.
“A river basin is fed by water upstream, often in another country,” she said, underscoring the need for “shared data, shared standards and shared early warnings.”
The WMO also highlighted the potential cross-border consequences of glacier-related disasters, reinforcing the need for countries sharing water systems to strengthen early-warning systems and preparedness.