Overview

• Only about one third of river basins showed normal flow last year, with the rest swinging to too much or too little water.
• All glacial regions lost ice for a third straight year, with roughly 450 gigatonnes shed in the last year adding about 1.2 mm to global sea level.
• Cumulative glacier loss since the 1970s totals about 9,000 gigatonnes, corresponding to roughly 25 mm of sea-level rise.
• The 2024 impacts included exceptionally heavy rains in tropical Africa causing about 2,500 deaths and displacing 4 million people, Europe’s largest floods since 2013, and record rains and cyclones in Asia-Pacific causing over 1,000 deaths.
• The UN estimates 3.6 billion people face water shortfalls at least one month per year, with projections exceeding 5 billion by 2050, and WMO scientists urge water reuse, better aquifer management, storage of glacier meltwater, and more efficient agricultural use.