UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : WMO Press conference: State of Global Water Resources report

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Good morning, dear

media representatives

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The World Meteorological Organisation is releasing today the State

of the Global Water Resources Report from 2023.

So this report is now in its third year.

It is the result of global collaboration

and it provides a comprehensive assessment of our global

water resources from rivers and groundwater to glaciers and soil

moisture

and many other variables that are helping

us understand better our water situation.

This report gives us a detailed picture of

how water is responding to changes in our climate

and how these changes are affecting communities,

agriculture and the environment.

Today we have with us Celester

Slo, secretary General of the World Meteorological Organisation,

who will give us the context

in which this report is released.

Mr. Stefan

Uro.

He's the director of hydrology water and

cryos spe at WM and he will be presenting the findings

and missus

Sagna Mishra

She's a scientific officer and she will also be, uh,

taking your questions at the end.

Professor slo

what is the context of this report?

Thank you very much, Bridgette. Good morning to everyone Bonsu

to

thank you for being here today.

Water is the basis of life in this planet,

but it can also be a force of destruction.

One of the key findings of this

report is that water becomes increasingly unpredictable.

What we call an erratic hydrological cycle leading to sudden floods,

severe droughts

and climate change is one of the causes of these extreme behaviours.

To mitigate the impact of such potential catastrophes,

we must gather reliable data.

After all,

we cannot appropriately manage what we do not measure.

W

Ms provides solid science based on reliable data

to help governments take informed action to protect their populations.

Unfortunately,

that science indicates the situation will worsen over the coming years.

W M's mandate covers not only weather and climate, but also water including oceans,

the

cryos and sea level rise.

Two weeks ago,

I was in New York at the United Nations General Assembly

when the pact for the future was adopted.

This pact places significant emphasis on

climate action and related environmental challenges,

including water scarcity, floods and sea level rise.

One of the notable initiatives highlighted in it

is the early warnings for all system,

which aims to ensure that every country is protected by an early warning

by

2027.

This initiative is a key element in addressing climate

induced disasters such as floods and extreme weather events.

It underscores the urgency of preparing vulnerable communities for impending

climate threats like sea level rise and water related crisis.

These global challenges transcend borders and conflicts

because water is once again

the basis of life on Earth.

So we must work together

to address the water issues.

This year

we have made significant strides in data collection.

However,

there are still major gaps, particularly in regions such as Africa,

South America and parts of Asia,

where much of the hydrological cycle remains unknown.

And again we cannot manage appropriately. What we do not measure

water is becoming the most telling indicator of our climate's distress.

And yet,

as a global society, we are not taking bold action to protect this resource.

This brings the

TMO to release the 2020 20 sorry, the 2023 state of Global Water Resources report.

The report helps answer the where what

and how much.

Where are the areas of water stress?

What is happening to glaciers and rivers?

How much are we losing and how much are we gaining?

This knowledge empowers governments,

policy makers and communities to make better decisions.

The report is also a reminder that Cooper operation,

through data sharing and building trust between nations,

is critical for managing our shared water resources.

Let me walk you through some of the key findings of

this. A 2023 report

1st

2023 was the driest year for global rivers in 33 years.

Second,

glaciers around the world lost most water in

50 years in the last 50 years.

Third, the water cycle is becoming more erratic.

You will hear more details in the briefing that is coming,

but the question is, what can we do with this knowledge?

First,

we must fill the gaps in our understanding.

We need to expand our hydrological monitoring,

especially in regions where data is scarce.

We cannot afford blind spots

when it comes to our water resources.

I urge nations to invest in hydrological

monitoring and commit to sharing this critical data

because without it we are navigating without a map.

This data, fed into appropriate early warning systems,

can help people to be better prepared

and save lives.

Second, we need proactive planning.

Policy makers and community leaders must use

this information to protect vulnerable populations,

develop resilient infrastructure

and ensure equitable access to water.

Access to clean water is a basic human right,

and we cannot overlook the needs of marginalised communities.

The signs we are receiving are impossible to ignore.

I am here today not only to share the findings of this report, but to call on all of you

to amplify these messages and spark action.

Thank you for your time and your commitment to sharing this story.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr Secretary General.

And now I will give the floor to Mister Stefan Ullenberg,

director of Hydrology Water and cryos at W

to

tell us about the

pics. Stefan.

Thank you so much, Brigit, Uh, pleasure for welcome from my side as well.

And it's a pleasure to to summarise the main findings of the report

in the next 10 minutes or so.

what what is in the report? As Secretary General, uh, Professor Solo

just explained we tried to characterise the hydrological or the water situation

around the world. So

therefore we we analyse key hydrological components like

the water in the river this river discharge

or where water is stored on the landscape.

It can be stored on this in the surface store,

for instance, in lakes

or in in reservoirs.

Can you trust

me?

Is it

better to hear me now?

So water can be stored in the surface

in lakes and reservoirs.

Or it can be stored in in the subsurface, in the soil moisture or in the ground water

or as snow and ice in in the upper parts of the mountains,

as glaciers or in the snow cover.

And we analyse all these parameters for around the world

and and synthesise that data into one, report.

Often you will hear us saying, Oh, this is above normal. This is below normal

and we characterise that as such,

we we have for every parameter here in this example for stream flow,

which is changing not only every day during floods,

it can change every every minute or every hour.

So we characterise that, and statistically,

if it remains in the beige part of this figure, we call it, it's normal.

It's it's between the 25 and 75% percentile.

If it's much above we colour coded uh, bluish or greenish,

or if it's much below, it's more yellow or orange and the drier,

the more orange and the wetter, the more blue.

So so when we say above normal or below normal, that's a statistical,

uh,

expression

first result.

As Professor S already said, if you look at the, uh, last 33 years of discharge data,

so that's,

um, the the flow in the rivers,

and we characterise that for the whole world.

Now you have here, UH, 3433 years every year is one column,

and then how much of the earth is in the middle?

So it's kind of average, or is it above or below normal?

You can see that for the 33 years it's going up and down.

What interesting is that, particularly over the last five years? We observe

that the the area globally that is behaving normal, you know where the water is is,

uh, in in the normal part is lower than in the previous year.

So it going going down.

What is also interesting is that the year 2023 was the year which was,

which was almost half of the earth

was uh, above, uh, excuse me below normal conditions. We never had that before.

So it's really interesting that the very

hot weather,

as Professor Solo said 2023 was another year with

a temperature record was the warmest year ever,

ever recorded.

that translated into dry rivers.

So So the largest part of the area was actually much below normal.

So So we had really exceptionally dry conditions.

If you look at this at the global scale and it's not about the details, uh,

but if you just look at it,

you see a lot of orange and yellow colours

here and that indicates where the river flow was,

uh, below or much below normal.

And if I may guide you just through a few hotspots, uh,

what we observed for the year 2023.

Maybe start with Professor Solo's home, If I may say so.

We have, uh, the Plata Basin, where near

Buenos Aires, southern part of

northern part of Argentina, southern Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, That area.

We had a very persistent drought over a number of years,

which had huge implications for the ecology, but also for the economy.

Really. G GDP was going down because of the dry conditions.

the change in in 2023 I need to say we had

the first half of the year characterised by so called La

Nina conditions.

And roughly in July, the system swapped into

a, uh, a nino system

doing the La Nina.

Um, that area,

which I just mentioned here in South

America was was characterised by dry conditions

that the second half of the year became wetter is is seen a bit.

It's not extreme dry anymore, but it didn't turn into a wet area.

However, the drought moved upwards. So most of Latin America were very dry.

That actually continued in 2024.

And we now experience very low record low

reservoir levels in many parts of Latin America,

with implications on power cuts because of hydropower, etcetera.

Another example. If I may guide you to the,

uh, southwest of of the United States,

you see there's a bluish colour that's the Colorado River and sub

basins.

There was for almost 10 years, a dry situation, but in 2023

also because of a record snowfall, we should we see we look at some figures in a minute

that really resulted in much,

much wetter conditions in that south Southwester part of the United States.

So the drought was over for this year and people

are very curious to see how it will develop.

That part is also economically very,

very important for for the United States and the world,

and the economy was also suffering because of dry conditions.

Other examples without maybe too much detail

the the Greater Horn of Africa Ethiopia,

Somalia After five years of severe drought with huge food insecurity,

challenges for the people in that part turned into wet conditions in 2023.

While in Australia, which suffered a lot from the La Nina situation

during a severe drought,

now turned into somewhat wetter or average conditions during the year.

But having uh, excuse me, uh,

what we humans do to to average out these these high and low flow conditions,

we build reservoirs and we store water in the landscape to make it

available for for for humans and the economy.

And you see here the inflow into reservoirs again, the more orange you see,

the drier, the conditions,

the size of the circle indicates how big the reservoirs and just at a global scale.

The pattern that we see in the stream flow is

now translated into the inflow of reservoirs and again,

many dry conditions with serious consequences for economy.

These were averaged over the year.

having many parts of the world under dry

condition doesn't mean there were no floods.

As Professor S

said, the water cycle is becoming more erratic,

so that means we have where we have more dry conditions.

On average, we also have many floods.

So here you see a couple of blue dots around the world, just a few selected

floods

to to pinpoint all of them would be impossible.

You wouldn't see anything anymore because there's hardly a

week where we do not have flooding anywhere,

somewhere in the world.

So what we see here serious flooding, particularly in Eastern Africa.

Also Libya was a was a very disastrous flooding happening in September last year,

normally should never rain in September at all.

But then there was an enormous amount of rainfall

in the southern Mediterranean because of high ocean temperature,

which collapse which caused the collapse of two dams in Libya

and dramatic consequences for more than 10,000

people probably died because of this disaster.

Interesting is that in in Greece or parts of Italy,

where also enormous amount of rainfall was falling,

it didn't lead to such a disaster because early with early warning systems

were in place and people could manage the risks of flooding better.

So therefore,

we see that a better preparedness of society and

the early warning really translate in in less,

um, less disasters.

Let me move on to the This was where the water is flowing in the rivers.

Now we look where the water is stored. I come,

uh, to the, uh, shorter second half of my presentation.

And, uh,

what we see on this graph is the Is that all these dots are ground water levels.

And as it was said before, uh,

we have an enormous increase of data availability. So thanks to the hydro

meteorological services around the world,

they make more and more data available this year, we could use almost 30

6000 of ground water levels. Analyse it in this report.

And here you see a few countries just a few examples how the situation is

in many parts similar as in the stream flow we see here also dry groundwater wells

compared to again the year 2023 compared with the previous 20 years of data.

And, um,

so that that pattern is also translated.

And the economies that increasingly depend on groundwater if they

have these dry conditions are more vulnerable to change.

What is also the total storage of water is in the,

uh is so called the terrestrial water storage.

So that means water stored in the ground water system in the soil, water in

rivers and lakes and reservoirs everywhere.

And this is all summarised with measured with a satellite.

Uh, and then we see storage changes over time.

We compared the year 2023 with the previous, uh, 19 years of data.

And you see here that many parts of Europe, the Mediterranean area, for instance,

parts of North America, South America, really, uh, less water is stored.

So we use more water on ground where we

pump more out more ground water than we actually use

or for water stored as snow and ice.

More water is melted away and flowing into

the ocean than it was naturally recharged by,

uh, snow.

Um, we see this also in dry

conditions. This is global maps for different months of soil moisture.

We understand that it's not about the details,

but but I think visually you already see that

there's a lot of orange and yellow colours there.

So we see that the the hot climate of 2023

resulted in drier soil moisture conditions again with with,

uh, severe consequences in many parts of the world for agriculture,

for food security or ecosystems, et cetera.

Um, last part of my short presentation is on. The water is stored as snow and ice.

Being here in Switzerland, that's a that's a super important part for us.

What you see here is from the Northern Hemisphere

data provided by by the survey in in

Canada that they analyse the Northern Hemisphere.

And you see here, uh, red shows in March, we had relatively low snow and ice

snow conditions. Excuse me. Snow. Snow. I'm speaking about snow Snow. Water

equivalent is parameter for snow. For instance, Switzerland.

Maybe you can see this on the map is dark orange.

So 2023 was very low in snow in, uh, because of a dry,

relatively warm winter and UM that resulted in relatively snow cover there.

Interesting.

Earlier,

I said that the Colorado in southwest of the United States had a the drought was over,

and I mentioned this is also caused by more rainfall, but also by more snowfall.

They had record high snow snowfall in the um in the Rocky Mountains, for instance,

and you see this in the southwest of in the western part of the United States,

where we had really exceptionally high snow cover in this year,

which which then resulted in more resources in the in the following summer.

As soon as the snow is melted.

Large part is on glaciers.

Um, though when the snow is transformed into ice, glaciers are formed here,

very visible in Switzerland.

And and that's a sad story.

I think we have explained this at this very in this very room.

For a number of times, the glaciers are retreating rapidly.

We, um,

thanks to the fantastic work of the World Glacier Monitoring Service.

Now we have almost 50 years of data so data since the mid seventies,

and it shows here for the summer half year and the winter half year

summarise for the whole Globe, the the situation of glacier.

So the mass of a glacier globally summarised in a column here

and you see a particularly in the last decades. It's it's very rare.

It's very unfortunate that Glacier have been retreating rapidly,

and also the latest data for this year actually shows that,

at least in the Swiss Alps,

um, it has been continuing. And, uh

um, more glaciers are having reduced them.

The mass balance Also here in Switzerland particularly.

What does it mean if a glacier is is melting more and more,

that means more water becomes available downstream for some years.

If a lot of water is stored up in the mountains in

the glacier and then it becomes warmer and the water is mobilised,

it's melted and flowing downstream.

Then more water becomes available. That's what we see at the moment,

so the river flows downstream of glaciers. Is that relatively high at the moment?

However, if the glacier is gone in a few more decades,

uh, it will be, uh, very dramatic,

because then the the summer high flows from the

melting glaciers will disappear because there's no storage anymore.

So if the glacier disappears, that changes completely the hydrological regime.

It changes completely the conditions for ecosystems.

It changes completely the the availability of water for farmers, etcetera.

So it has really severe consequences.

We call this,

for a couple of years, higher water availability. Also so called peak water.

That means through the melting glaciers more water

becomes available for some for some years,

and and then it becomes significantly less.

These were a few of the main results.

There's much more in this thick report,

and we are happy to answer more questions during the

Q and a thank you.

Thank you very much. Uh, Stefan. And

now I'm happy to open the floor to questions to our Secretary General,

Stefan Ueno,

and, uh, Sagna.

Um also, uh, Misha

is also available. Um, yes, Christian.

Thank you, Brigitte. It's Christiana with the German press Agency.

I have two questions on the data.

uh, the SEC secretary general mentioned 33 years for 33 years.

Is that because that's the amount of data you have? Or does that mean

33 years ago it was drier than today? That's the first question. And the second one is

I understand that a lot of data is missing.

And Stefan explained to me just now that, uh, there are models that, uh,

that fill in the gaps.

How reliable are these models? How can you model a

river flow in Africa, where you have very little, uh, data?

You know, not even from the vicinity. Thank you.

Maybe we take this question together.

we take 30 years as a climate normal period, 30 years,

and we compare the year with the last 30 years to say,

you know how How was it different from the last 30 years

or 30 years of data we had is now the third report.

So we have now 33 years of data, which we always compare with the same 30 years.

So the 30 years is the baseline, and then we compare the year.

How was 2021 doing compared to the, uh, 30 years 2022 and now 2023.

There's much longer data available and also, um,

previous data. But

it's just in climatology, often a standard period of 30 years,

which you take as as an average

if you take other 30 years, maybe before the pre industrial time.

If you would have data that might might lead

to even different results or more dramatic results.

But but we don't know that.

Um and sorry. Can I just,

make it more understandable? It doesn't mean that 33 years ago it was drier,

because that's what I understand when you say it's the driest for 33 years.

I understand that 33 years ago, it was drier than today. But that's wrong.

33 years of data we had never such a large area around the world,

which was under such dry conditions.

So from the 33 year of years of data that were considered in this report,

it was the driest year.

It could be that in Uh um, you know,

in the first half of the last century that it was a dry it could well be.

But we don't know that because we don't have the data

and very important to help. Thank you for your question. Help us to clarify.

We do have these global operational hydrological models.

We take the 10 best models from Germany, the US, Canada, Japan, China, et cetera,

et cetera.

And these are averaged,

and these models are are calibrated on on much more data.

But we just didn't have for last year. We have only, um uh, what is it?

33 years of, uh, 34 countries which made the data available.

But in the 30 years before, there's many many.

There's many, many more data sets available, including in Africa,

much less in Africa than in Europe.

But there's more data to calibrate and validate these models

just to analyse the last year,

we had only the data available from the countries as it is per press release.

So thank you for clarifying this.

So we we think our models are are reasonably accurate,

and and we feel confident for making the statements we make,

um

yeah, every every model has uncertainty. We could expand on that. But in general,

I think the the the bold statements we we feel comfortable in making them

Sagna,

please,

uh, just to add to what, Stefan, uh, said, uh, how reliable the model results are.

Um, one, as Stefan said for the previous years,

The these are calibrated for much more data than what we see in the report for 2023.

Uh, but apart from that we also do two other kind of validation. For example, we do,

um, for whatever data that is available, we check the model results,

not just the calibration part,

but we also check the model results with the results from the NC

data.

And in this result, in this report, we have seen that more than 75% accuracy with

C to observe data versus model data

and where data is not available, we do model into comparison.

So if we have 10 models, how many of them actually agree in each basin?

This is especially important for areas where we do not have data.

This is also a general practise when we look

at forecasting when we don't have forecasting real data.

But we of course, what we do is we have the models,

and how we are sure about or how can we be more confident about the models?

Is

how many of the models are actually agreeing to each other because

they are all calibrated in a different format and so on.

And in this report we see that more than 95%

of the in more than 95% of the areas the models have agreed.

So we are quite confident about the results that we show.

Thank you.

Thank you. Yes, please.

Yes. Hello. Thank you for taking my question. And, yes,

perro from

France.

I have a just a clarification and and a question a

clarification on the word reservoir that you used on the photos.

You when you talk about reservoir, you are showing, uh, dams.

I was wondering if you only look at reserve dams

or if you also look at other kinds of rs.

And then the question would be on the

the

the climate change and the cycle of water,

which you explain. It was now more irregular, more erratic.

You talk about the importance of early warnings about mitigation.

Uh,

and I was wondering, Is there is there a way to make, uh, this cycle of water, uh,

more regular again?

Uh, I know, scientifically speaking. Uh, I don't know.

Is there a way of of coming back?

Thank you.

This

month,

Um, I'll take the first part of the question about dams and reservoirs.

So we have divided the chapters into two. We have one chapter on lakes.

Uh, where we look at, um

naturally, naturally, naturally stored water.

And, uh, the one the chapter that we are showing here on reservoir.

These are, uh,

the largest reservoirs where we could collect data from,

uh, not necessarily only man made concrete ones,

but also the ones where So it's basically the ones we could get data from.

It's a combination of both but the lakes.

If you if you wanted to know about lakes, that's a different chapter.

Thank you very much for your question, I.

I will take part of your second question, but I'm sure that Stefan,

uh can also add on that.

Certainly, we cannot,

uh, put things back to normal.

Uh, what we can do is to stop the the acceleration that we find in in what we,

uh, in what we see as the responses of the climate to our action.

And and, you know,

we are trying to to consistently speak about the hydrological cycle because

it is a cycle we used to think sometimes in rivers.

And then we speak about grain as as if they were separated parts of, uh,

of of of a system.

And they are part of the system.

And what we see is that, um we come from, uh,

I could say all times where we could manage a dam.

We could manage a river,

which is a well known system, but now you have

much more

water

in, In, in, in,

I would say like a vapour and and and it in into what we call atmospheric rivers,

atmospheric rivers. You cannot put them into dams.

You cannot manage them. So

here we are,

with the system much more erratic,

different, difficult to predict.

And this is the current reality. That's why we speak about the hydrological cycle.

And we need to think about water, ground water, rivers, lakes,

glaciers and atmospheric vapour.

Thank you.

Just 12 sentences, If I may,

what we see through climate change, the hydrological cycle is accelerating.

It's you know, it's turning out quicker and quicker,

so we see more floods and droughts and more pronounced more longer dry periods,

but at the same time more flooding

in many parts of the world. So it's accelerating. It's becoming more erratic

to control that atmospheric lives said.

We cannot control even rivers we can not control. Now we learn our lessons.

Think about Libya.

The example where where due to, you know,

challenges of huge amounts of rainfall and poor maintenance of the of the dam.

And so

more than 10,000 people died were literally

washed away into the Mediterranean Sea.

And so? So it's very difficult to control.

The only thing what we can do is to to stabilise the climate,

which is a generation challenge.

Thank you.

Hi. Good morning. Um,

I think you answered my question, but just to be clear, uh,

I was hoping for a bit more clarification on how it was that there were record, uh,

glacier losses, but also sort of record low flows,

but I think it's because of different parts of the world.

But, um,

if you could just explain that a bit more clearly And, um, maybe comment on

how governments can plan for this really long term.

Governments are planning multibillion dollar projects

around the world based on dams,

nuclear plants,

which depend on river flows. Um, how can they plan?

And are are they getting it right or are they more basing it on what's

happened in the past rather than than what's going to happen in the future?

Thanks.

Um, yeah. Thank you the directly downstream of glaciers.

You can have for some years the so called peak water effect.

You know that you have more melt. I think we we we try to expand that

in some areas of Asia.

It's predicted that we already exceeded the peak water,

so so it's already at the declining site.

So in other parts of the world, it's before.

So it's It's difficult to say everywhere it's behaving like this,

Um, But if you look at their own catchment, which you might premier,

there's the upper part is glacier

as no.

But if you look at the whole road all the way down to southern France is of course,

large parts of the of the basin are not

influenced by the glaciers directly downstream of the glaciers. Yes,

but But the big water used for irrigation in southern France, for instance,

is is of course, you know, depending also on the on the rainfall and and many other

many other storages. So So it depends therefore, always to to uh

um

summarises.

In one figure, all these complexities is a bit difficult,

but I think downstream of glaciers is a very important part.

Are we on a good track? Um

II. I think stabilising the climate, as as professors

just said is, is a big challenge. And we cannot.

We we need to adapt to that.

We need to adapt to a change of the hydrology we need to adapt to,

um

sometimes more frequent and different at different

times of the year flooding and droughts,

which

which really impacts ecosystem,

which impacts species and which impacts

agricultural water use and industries etcetera.

Uh, we it's clear that we need to to move to more renewables.

But this change of the water availability in Latin America,

some countries have more than 50% of the of

the energy comes from hydropower in Latin America.

But this change of the water cycle really challenges the countries. At the moment.

In Quito, you have regular power cuts

the capital of Ecuador, because there's just no water in the reservoirs

and and that has huge implications for the people and convenience,

but also for the economy. And and we have this in many examples.

This was just something which I picked up last weekend

in, in in the in the news.

Um

and so we see this globally. So are we on the right track?

And what kind of investments are needed if we want. We need to adapt to these changes.

One investment is more needed in infrastructure

in in early warning systems

and and maybe locally protecting from floods and droughts.

Maybe reservoirs can be can be locally the right solution,

but also maybe different water use the way we utilise our water resources.

We need to rethink that.

So that needs investments and infrastructure,

but also in the way we use our our increasingly scarce resources.

Thank you.

Thank you. Yes.

Sorry. Sorry.

Um, just to add, um,

another point on water management on better management when we have

data like this.

The kind of analysis that we do to see what is the

impact of climate change on the different components of the water cycle?

It's not necessarily similar for one area in in for some examples. For example,

when in Amazon we see we saw a record low and river discharge, but we at the same time,

we saw

a bit of increase in

overall water storage. And there is a voyage,

um um similarly, in parts of

South Africa and parts of India we saw increase

in groundwater storage, whereas there was dry periods in stream flow.

So how the different parts of the water cycle

is behaving to the climate change is different.

So when we have information on these components,

we could manage,

or we could decide on which parts the dependency

on this year on this season can be improvised.

But for this for taking these kind of decisions better, we need

the information and hence coming back again

to better monitoring and better analysis of

the data to be able to manage and adapt better to this changing climate.

We have another question in the room, please. Yes. Hello, Daniel Johnson.

You're on TV and radio.

It was a clarification. Really?

Um, it was really a follow up to your comments about the

glaciers in

Switzerland and and beyond. I mean, are you sounding the death knell for

the ski industry in Europe?

Because it sounds like it's all happening in the Rockies.

Um, and also another clarification over the water resources

for farmers, uh, in Europe as well.

You know, if the if the glaciers disappear and I think you said decades,

could you be a bit more precise about

how many decades we're looking at,

Um, just so that people can

get a grasp on maybe the urgency of the issue. Thank you.

Um, thank you for your question.

The

the melting of glaciers.

So the response the retreating of glaciers is is a process over many years,

sometimes decades.

But we see it already. Now. It's happening quickly.

If you look at the Swiss glaciers, as you said, um,

the the

2020 22 and 23 roughly 10% of the mass of the Swiss glaciers disappeared in two years,

10% in two years.

Now, last year, the latest data, which was published End of September,

was that last year it was also another 2 2.5%.

That's, the data indicates disappeared over the last summer,

which wasn't as as warm and as dry,

and the winter was not as dry, so to recharge the glaciers.

But another half 2.5% disappeared.

So it really it's It's changing rapidly, and it's changing now,

So it's not a question.

Now we have a couple of decades to, to to adapt to this change of the ideology

and the impact.

Uh, the skis. This, uh, the ski industry.

As you said, Well, there's there's skiing on glaciers as well,

but mainly on snow.

So it really depends on the snow during the year and, uh,

how much the of the mountains are covered by snow

in a warming climate.

Needless to say that the the, um,

the elevation but we still have snow is

is going moving upwards with a warmer climate,

that's clear.

So therefore, the likelihood of having

uh,

less favourable conditions for skiing is is there.

But we don't call for the death of the ski industry or something like this, but we do.

We do recognise the problem. We do see rapid changes,

and, um but it it varies a lot.

Maybe you remember the figure we showed from the the March snow

condition and then in the in the southwest in the Rockies,

there was enormous amount of snowfall in this year.

Many other parts of that of that figure indicated a lot of orange and red,

So there's a huge spatial and temporal variability in that data.

So it's it's it's difficult to say

Thank you,

Ma,

if I may Also, I would like to

emphasise that, uh, WMO is working with FIS,

uh, which is the Federal International Ski Association.

Uh, in order to understand the impacts of, uh,

the the change in snows and snow patterns into this activity.

Uh,

because we we all understand. And this is another part of our report

that all these changes,

all these changes that we see and we are documenting through our different reports,

uh, impact, different activities impact all of us in terms of, uh,

global community.

We are people. We we live here and there,

but they also impact important industries that help economies develop. So

that's why we are, uh, as WMO trying to work with these, um,

sectors in order to under understand and work together

to assess the particular impact and then to provide,

uh,

adaptation measures that are adequate for that particular sector.

Thank you.

And and regarding the International Federation of Ski, you can find, uh,

our press release released last Thursday.

Uh, which is covering

this topic as well? We have two people waiting online. Thank you for your patience.

Uh, Jamie Keaton, please.

Thank you. Brigitte. Um, my question is just about

2024.

I don't know if you've got any visibility, but, uh,

we just came off the hottest summer

on record.

Um, and I'm just wondering if you could say what kind of trends you're seeing for

possible the rivers and and possible water scarcity, Uh, this year as well. Thanks.

Uh, we we haven't analysed the data for 2024 yet.

In terms of hydrology, this data becomes only available later. Unfortunately,

uh, the temperature records are breathtaking.

Yet another month with a with a record. Uh uh, global temperature.

I think Professor Z

has made

this very clear. And in several occasions

and the so the heat from 2023 continued certainly in the first half of last year,

but also in August and probably September was maybe there was one month.

There was yet one more month than another month.

But overall temperature, we we it remains

very high.

Very likely

we

analyse the ideology, but very likely this hot, dry weather continues to, uh, to

translate to, um,

low river flow.

That's that's That's the

That's what

would make sense. But we haven't analysed that data yet,

but in many parts of the world. We we expect more water scarcity.

And if I made one more sentence on the adaptation sentence,

where was the previous question

globally? 70% of all water withdrawals.

So all the water we take out of the system is used for agriculture, 70%.

In some countries, it's more than 90%.

In countries like in Central Asia,

where there's a lot of inefficient irrigation practises,

more than 90% of all water that is used is used for irrigation.

So really, we need to adapt to more effective,

more efficient systems in these areas to save more water resources.

Also in agriculture, that's very important.

But if you are in a peak water situation,

the the Central Asian glaciers are melting rapidly.

At the moment, they have a lot of water,

but very likely in the future this might become even more serious.

So at the moment where they have

actually a lot of water,

that's the time where they would need to adapt to to having much less in the future.

But if if the water is still there,

it's It's very difficult to motivate investments in in more water savings.

But but this is actually needed.

It's needed in Central Asia, and it's needed in many parts of the world.

Thank you.

And we have a question from Liz.

Sly,

please.

Yes. Good morning. And thank you for taking my question. I have a I have a couple.

Actually,

uh, I was interested.

You were talking about the disaster of the dam breaking in Libya

and the fact that, uh, Greece didn't suffer a similar, uh,

situation because of early warning.

Could you elaborate upon that?

How is it that early warning can, uh, somehow mitigate?

Uh, a, uh, AAA possible, uh, disaster, such as happened in Libya and in Greece.

And, uh uh, yeah,

if you would elaborate upon the early warning systems and how this can help.

Also, uh, you were talking about the impact consequences for the economy.

What about the consequences of water wars? They're already occurring.

And then we have a very,

uh, explosive situation occurring right now in the Middle East. And, uh, this, uh,

this is an area which is rather dry and has already, uh, you know,

there have been lots of tensions in that regard.

Um, if you could

speak a bit about that. And then lastly,

are there some areas in the world where which are more

susceptible to water scarcity than others and

less like, less capable of somehow

adapting to the new situation and mitigating,

Uh, the future scare? Well, current and future scarcity of water,

I'm thinking, particularly of Africa, which, uh,

has lots of conflicts and is very poor, et cetera.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for your question.

Uh, I will take the first part of your question, and our colleagues will Will,

complete with more, uh uh,

detailed information.

let me share with you that, um with all of you that,

uh, early warnings are AAA key measure for adaptation.

And why do we say so? You ask us to elaborate

because, um, first, um, early warnings, uh, are based on, uh, forecasts

and, uh, of course data.

So, um,

we need, uh, to to prepare in advance.

The the question is, how much in advance can we prepare?

And there are different strategies to prepare, so we can speak about, um,

a flash flood guidance system, for example, which is very short time scale.

Uh,

because it's a sudden kind of event when you have a a river

that has a very deep slope and suddenly you get AAA flood.

From that kind of situation,

you need some kind of early early warning system that is completely different from

an early warning that try to to cover, um,

much longer time scales, for example, the hydro S

OS approach that we have been working in WMO,

which is more like a seasonal scales where you

are understanding what is happening with the river,

the kind of pictures we have seen during this presentation

where we can see that basin is suffering from less,

uh, rains in the upper part of the basin.

And so you

the lower part of the basin, to be, um affected by by less water, for example.

And that is where you can provide also an early warning and

and do your best to prepare in advance in this case,

not to be affected by a flood or perhaps to be resilient and and and gather water for,

for for human and for consumption.

Um, and I, I think that Stefan did a great, um, example on the use. Or

I would say that the abuse of water in terms of irrigation.

And and there is it comes to to decision making, uh uh

with time scales or time horizons around 12345 years or more.

So there again is it we can call it an early warning.

What we want to say is, we need to be prepared in advance.

That is the meaning of an early warning.

And, uh, certainly, yes. If you are prepared, you make better decisions.

Uh, of course.

Uh, as we could see, uh, unfortunately, during the last hurricane Helen in,

in in the States, we could see that the, uh, that the forecast was was there.

The early warning was given,

Uh, the med service, uh,

is really well prepared and and and put all the information in place, But still,

the decision is hard to take.

Communication was there. Yes,

but decision making was difficult for people that were not

used to to be affected by this kind of phenomenon.

So it comes to us the the the the request

of taking into consideration behavioural sciences into the early warnings,

uh, system, because you may have a perfect forecast, but if you don't have

the way to have to really modify the behaviour so that your people get prepared, uh,

in in the best way possible.

You are still failing. So

it is a huge, um, I would say challenge a societal challenge. We are.

We are working together,

and we believe that, uh, there are,

uh,

very important, uh uh, opportunities to improve. Uh, each

life counts, and we must work

not to lose lives. Uh, as as our first priority.

But,

uh, thank you. What I may add to Miss Line's, uh, uh, several questions.

You you asked for the situation in Greece and, um, southern Mediterranean.

First, it was in September that normally,

if you have any rainfall in northern Africa,

it's in the it's it's frontal rainfall in the in the winter

season and not not not at the end of the summer.

So it was really exceptional. Why did that happen?

It was an extremely warm Mediterranean sea.

It was a record high sea temperature in the Mediterranean Sea

and that caused rainfall generation mechanism like in a tropical cyclone,

something which you observe in the tropics, not in the Mediterranean Sea,

and therefore these enormous amounts of rain

were were falling over Greece, southern parts of Italy

and, uh, Libya.

In Greece, where also we had 5, 600 millimetres of rainfall during this event, Um,

which is almost it's kind of you need no more, uh, several months, almost.

It's almost a year of rainfall falling in in in three days.

So less than three days

in Greece,

it happened much less because of early warning

systems because of good maintenance of infrastructure.

One of the problems in Libya was not only the enormous amount of rainfall,

it was the collapse of these two dams,

which likely was caused by by insufficient maintenance of these dams.

And that is then kind of the

a

pace of our society.

If we don't take good care of our infrastructure,

that can be that can be very serious, particularly during extreme events.

Uh, you were asking how how how do we reduce? Um um

uh, victims? Or to to avoid from a national hazard that it becomes to a disaster. In

Italy, 12,000 people were evacuated because of early warning system.

These 12,000 people were not exposed to the direct effects anymore.

So therefore you you reduce the damage through early

warning and through early action so that that combination,

as as Professor Saudi said, is important on water wars.

There's colleagues in San Francisco, at the in Stanford.

There's an institute in Berkeley. Excuse me,

they they analyse water wars,

and they they show very clear tendency

of increasing tension around water resources.

There's more violent,

and they they have different different categories for that more violent.

Um

uh, how do I say that politely exchanges or,

problems because of water scarcity because of water insecurity?

Um, it could be that the media

is, is, is, is more sensitive to it. There will be more.

More is more is reported on that.

So to have over many decades, reliable database is very difficult.

But all their statistics show show an upward trend.

I think I think we can safely say that,

and you ask where where where are the regions that are mostly

exposed to water insecurity to increasing water scarcity can also mean floods.

So it's not only that the it's both extremes that hurt society,

and I think all our data show its particular where the capacity is low.

To deal with these challenges, like in many parts of Africa.

Middle East Jordan is one of the most water water scarce countries because of

the high population density and the very arid conditions you have in Jordan.

And, uh, but but also Central Asia, many parts of Asia,

Latin America very vulnerable

to to the changes which we see in climate change.

As we mentioned during our presentation,

it's it's difficult to say it's one region, but but we see, um,

the increasing variability of of the hydrological cycle causing tension

and stress, and and can provide the the source of conflict in many parts of the world.

thank you just to add very quickly to to

the early warning the numbers that Stefan mentioned before.

This is very, very important. The early warning.

It just to emphasise that not this doesn't mean that the disaster will not happen,

but it will not convert into into a national

emergency situation in terms of fatalities and so on.

Um, as Stefan said, around 12,000 people were

evacuated within one within one day with a 24 hour notice.

12,000 people from the Reno River basin were evacuated.

But if you look at the entire area which was subjected to this high rainfall

in

the first half of May, the Emilia Romania area of Italy,

where this flooding was happening.

They started getting eight times more than the

average rainfall in the area and they started.

They gave out this this notice for evacuation.

And in the overall area, 23,000 people were evacuated just to be safe.

Um, and there were still landslides that happened. Of course, 1000.

More than 1000 landslides happened.

There were 15 casualties. But

overall,

this how they how the how the country reacted because

of the early warning that was in place was remarkable.

And this is what we want in other parts of the world as well. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We have one last question from Maya plans.

Yes. Thank you, Bridget, for taking my question.

My question is,

uh could you talk about the Amazon

rainforest hydrological system and what's happening there?

And the second question is farming leading to cop 29.

Will we see more addressed in terms of vertical farming

and other methods of agriculture that pre preserve water systems.

So whoever wants to take it up,

but the Amazons? Yes.

in the Amazons, we continue to see record low rainfall. Hence. Also, we we see that

in the situation for the droughts,

we have at the moment reaching

the drought levels that was never seen before since 19 sixties,

um, we have reached a level that the level in the rivers, uh,

especially the Madeira River, um that the

the boats with that takes

supplies are not able to reach the dock cities.

This is also resulting in high prices, inflation

affecting food, security, etc.

This is also the high temperatures here and the and the,

and this dryness is also affecting

the Amazon as forest.

So the Amazon is continuing to burn,

and the smoke that we see that is going

up is also affecting the temperature in the area.

In general, the warmer waters

in the north tropical Atlantic, which is also making it difficult to

form rain clouds over the area, which is then,

as a result, also affecting the southern parts of Amazon.

So this is an overall situation that's happening now,

and this is the results of these are the results that we see.

These are the impacts that we see in August, September.

But to put them into numbers, we will have to wait until we see the,

until the data comes in next year and we analyse the after impacts

and how this is reacting with the other parts of the water cycle.

Thank you.

If I make 11 addition on your question of, do we see more more solutions?

Like like vertical farming?

Um, we we need to reconsider how we produce our food from in a changing climate.

That's that's for sure.

Vertical farming can be very resource efficient and, uh,

particularly for producing,

um, fruits, vegetable, uh, and, you know, high high end, um, commodities.

Also very good.

From a nutritious point of view, however,

it will be not be the solution for staple fruits.

So we will not do maize and

wheat and others in vertical farms so that

that's that's from our infrastructure and resource,

point of view. Not possible.

But but it is certainly a solution that also can help, um,

to increase, uh, to to, uh, to provide food and nutrition security.

These solutions will be promoted and, um, but it needs initial investment,

So it's maybe not not the solution for all the countries in the world.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. I don't see any hands up.

So this press conference will come to an end.

Thank you very much to everyone and wishing you a

very good week. Goodbye.

WMO Press conference: State of Global Water Resources report - 07 October 2024