Global river levels hit 30-year low in 2023, threatening water supplies

The WMO’s State of Global Water Resources report revealed that over half of global river catchment areas showed abnormal conditions in 2023, with most experiencing deficits. This trend was similar in 2022 and 2021.

Severe drought and low river discharge affected large parts of North, Central and South America, with the Amazon and Mississippi rivers hitting record lows. In Asia and Oceania, the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Mekong river basins experienced lower-than-normal conditions across almost their entire territories.

WMO Secretary General Celeste Saulo said, “Water is the canary in the coalmine of climate change. We receive distress signals in the form of increasingly extreme rainfall, floods and droughts which wreak a heavy toll on lives, ecosystems and economies”.

The report noted that climate change appears to be altering water distribution, contributing to extreme floods and droughts. 2023, the hottest year on record, saw both severe river depletion and devastating floods globally.

The transition from La Niña to El Niño in mid-2023 also influenced these extremes, with climate change exacerbating their impacts and making them harder to predict.

Glaciers lost over 600 gigatonnes of water, the highest figure in 50 years of observations, according to preliminary data. Switzerland’s Alps lost about 10% of their remaining volume over the past two years.

Currently, 3.6 billion people face inadequate access to water for at least one month annually, a figure expected to rise to over 5 billion by 2050, according to UN Water.