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# The global water baseline is becoming less normal
- URL: https://intelligence.wildlandseco.com/2026-09-18-global-water-abnormal-flows-storage-loss/
- Published: 2026-09-18T14:11:03.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-18T14:11:03.000Z
- Description: WMO’s 2025 water assessment finds one of the driest river-flow years in 35 years, continued terrestrial-water-storage decline and a fourth consecutive year of glacier loss across all regions.
- Author: Benjamin Worlund
- Tags: water resources, river flow, groundwater, drought, glaciers, Water, Climate, #ecological-intelligence, #brief-2026-09-18, #priority-read, #government-data, #geo-global

Evidence

Government data

Geography

Global

System

Rivers, groundwater, terrestrial water storage, snow and ice

## WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

The World Meteorological Organization’s State of Global Water Resources 2025 synthesizes member observations, hydrological models and satellite data across river discharge, groundwater, evapotranspiration, terrestrial water storage, snow and ice. It reports 2025 among the driest river-discharge years in 35 years, the fewest normal-flow years over the past seven years since records beginning in 1991, declining land-water storage over the past decade and glacier loss in every region for a fourth straight year.

## WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

The important signal is not simply that 2025 was dry. The reference condition itself is becoming more volatile, so water planning that assumes a stable historical range can underestimate both scarcity and excess-water risk. Ecological planning increasingly needs basin-scale storage, flow variability and extremes together rather than precipitation or annual averages alone.

## CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Coverage and data quality still vary among basins, and the report combines observations with modeled and satellite products. A global synthesis identifies broad hydrological change but does not replace local groundwater, streamflow or ecological-flow assessment.

## SOURCE

World Meteorological Organization · State of Global Water Resources 2025  
[View original evidence ↗](https://wmo.int/resources/publication-series/state-of-global-water-resources/2025?ref=intelligence.wildlandseco.com)

From the Morning Brief · 2026-09-18

[Read the full Morning Brief →](https://intelligence.wildlandseco.com/morning-brief-2026-09-18/)