An estimated 3.6 billion people face inadequate access to water at least one month in a year. This is expected to increase to more than 5 billion by 2050, according to UN Water.
Around 60% of rivers globally have either too much or too little water.
This is according to a report by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) report released this week.
In the past six years, only about one-third of the global river catchment area had normal discharge conditions, compared to the 1991-2020 average. This means that two thirds have too much or too little water, painting a picture of an increasingly erratic hydrological cycle.
There was much below-normal discharge across important river basins such as the Amazon, São Francisco, Paraná, and Orinoco in South America, and the Zambezi, Limpopo, Okavango, Orange basins in Southern Africa.
Due to 2024, being the hottest year on record, in the 175-year observational record, glaciated regions in the world reported losses due to melt.
Losses occurred in Scandinavia, Svalbard, and North Asia, while some regions like the Canadian Arctic and Greenland periphery, saw more moderate losses.
Colombian glaciers lost 5% in 2024.
Other regions suffered severe drought (South America and parts of Southern Africa), while others endured multiple floods (parts of Africa, Europe and Asia).
Celeste Saulo, WMO Secretary-General, said “reliable, science-based information is more important than ever before, because we cannot manage what we do not measure. The WMO’s State of Global Water Resources Report 2024 is part of WMO’s commitment to provide that knowledge.”
Extensive flooding occurred in West African basins in Senegal, Niger, Lake Chad and Volta. There was above normal river discharge across Central Europe and parts of Asia, swelling major basins including the Danube, Ganges, Godavari, and Indus.
About 75 main lakes across the globe saw above or much above normal temperatures in July, affecting water quality.
Researchers also found over-extraction of groundwater, continued to be a problem in some areas, reducing future water availability for communities and ecosystems and further stressing global water resources.
Only 38% of the wells (out of 37 406 from 47 countries which submitted groundwater data) had normal levels – the rest were too much or too little.
Picture: Supplied
Read the report