World’s rivers drying up: World Meteorological Organization issues stark climate warning

Last year was the driest year for global rivers in 33 years, warns a new report coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). 

According to the State of Global Water Resources report, the past five years have seen below-normal conditions for river flows and reservoir inflows worldwide, increasing stress on global water supplies.

The annual report paints the big picture of the world’s water cycle, from extreme floods to extreme droughts, from rivers and reservoirs to glaciers and groundwater. It brings together data from meteorological and hydrological services, data centres, hydrological modelling community members and supporting organisations such as NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences. 

“Water is the canary in the coalmine of climate change,” says WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. “We receive distress signals in the form of increasingly extreme rainfall, floods and droughts which wreak a heavy toll on lives, ecosystems and economies. Melting ice and glaciers threaten long-term water security for many millions of people. And yet we are not taking the necessary urgent action.”

2023 showed mostly drier-than-normal river discharge - the volume of water flowing through a river at a specific point in time. Over 50 per cent of global catchment areas showed ‘abnormal’ conditions.

Drought and reduced river discharge affected large parts of Northern, Central and South America, with the Mississippi showing record low water levels and the Amazon recording its lowest-ever level. Asian and Oceanian river basins the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Mekong had lower-than-normal conditions over almost their entire territories.

But other rivers and reservoirs flooded with devastating impact: the east coast of Africa had above-normal discharge and flooding, as did the North Island of New Zealand and the Philippines.

In Europe, the UK, Ireland, Finland and parts of Sweden all had above-normal discharge levels.

Last year was the world’s hottest year on record, with scientists concurring that Earth’s extreme temperatures are being driven by the climate crisis. The WMO report notes that 2023’s combination of both prolonged droughts and devastating floods can