Geneva: The planet's water cycle is becoming increasingly erratic, swinging between too little and too much, the United Nations warned, with an unprecedented El Nino expected to exacerbate the long-term trend.

Last year was among the driest for the world's rivers in over three decades, the World Meteorological Organization said in its annual State of Global Water Resources report. In 2025, glaciers shrank across all regions, while groundwater levels in many parts of the world are in multi-year decline. The Earth's freshwater storage continued a decade-long decline.

WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo voiced particular concern about the decline in "slow reserves" like groundwater and glaciers, which she said traditionally served as the planet's "savings account" - a buffer that absorbs bad years. "We are depleting that savings account. We are spending our reserves," she warned. Between 2023 and 2025, glaciers lost a cumulative global mass of 1,400 gigatonnes of water, roughly equal to a third of the world's annual freshwater withdrawals.

Saulo highlighted that nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide showed conditions outside the historical norm in 2025, alongside more water-related disasters. She pointed to the current El Nino pattern, expected to be the strongest in four decades, warning it "will increase the risk of drought in some areas, and flooding in others." Already, rivers worldwide were showing "abnormal" flows, with only around 36 percent seeing normal flows in 2025 - the seventh consecutive year that normal conditions were in a clear minority. The WMO stressed the importance of shared data, standards, and early warnings, noting that river basins are often fed by water from another country.

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