Water is the canary in the coalmine of climate change
WMO report highlights growing shortfalls and stress in global water resources. Currently, 3.6 billion people face inadequate access to water at least a month per year and this is expected to increase to more than 5 billion by 2050, according to UN Water, and the world is far of track SDG 6 on water and sanitation.
The year 2023 marked the driest year for global rivers in over three decades, according to a new report coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which signaled critical changes in water availability in an era of growing demand.
In fact, in countries like Mexico, some cities nearly ran out of water this year. The government of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is making water availability one of its priorities with a newly announced national plan that considers water access a human right.
Mexico, one of the 20 biggest economies in the world, has been dealing with increasing water scarcity as droughts become more frequent and severe because of climate change.
Mexico is already reviewing thousands of water concessions, or the permits granted to extract groundwater for industries like agriculture, breweries, or manufacturing. Adriana Carolina Flores-Díaz, an expert on sustainability and water management at the Iberoamerican University in Mexico City said that Mexico’s water plan “seems a bit too focused on infrastructure without including biodiversity conservation, reforestation or wetland recovery.”
“By themselves, structures, pipelines, all this cement could lead to white elephant projects… I hope they start incorporating more experiences from successful local initiatives that use ecotechnologies” like rainwater collection, she adds.
With 2023 being the hottest year on record, elevated temperatures and widespread dry conditions contributed to prolonged droughts worldwide. But there were also a significant number of floods around the world. The extreme hydrological events were influenced by naturally occurring climate conditions — the transition from La Niña to El Niño in mid-2023 — as well as human induced climate change.
“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. Melting ice and glaciers threaten long-term water security for many millions of people. And yet we are not taking the necessary urgent action,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.
“As a result of rising temperatures, the hydrological cycle has accelerated. It has also become more erratic and unpredictable, and we are facing growing problems of either too much or too little water. A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture which is conducive to heavy rainfall. More rapid evaporation and drying of soils worsen drought conditions,” she said.
The State of Global Water Resources report series offers a comprehensive and consistent overview of water resources worldwide. It is based on input from dozens of National Meteorological and Hydrological Services and other organizations and experts. It seeks to inform decision makers in water-sensitive sectors and disaster risk reduction professionals. It complements WMO’s flagship State of the Global Climate series.
The State of the Global Water Resources report is now in its third year and is the most comprehensive to date, with new information on lake and reservoir volumes, soil moisture data, and more details on glaciers and snow water equivalent.
The report seeks to create an extensive global dataset of hydrological variables, which includes observed and modelled data from a wide array of sources. It aligns with the focus of the global Early Warnings for All initiative on improving data quality and access for water-related hazard monitoring and forecasting,and providing early warning systems for all by 2027.
Currently, 3.6 billion people face inadequate access to water at least a month per year and this is expected to increase to more than 5 billion by 2050, according to UN Water, and the world is far of track Sustainable Development Goal 6 on water and sanitation.
