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A report by UN weather agency, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), released on Monday, October 7, 2024, says rivers worldwide had less water in 2023 than at any time in the past 30 years.
The WMO said that global water levels had been well below the long-term average in the last five years.
It said the fall in water levels was caused by climate change, exacerbated by the El Niño weather phenomenon, which occurs naturally every few years and affects precipitation worldwide.
Last year was the hottest on record and glaciers lost more ice than they have done for at least 50 years, said the report, noting that not all rivers have been equally affected.
According to the WMO, the water levels are below the long-term average in the Mississippi basin in the United States, the Amazon basin in South America, Asia, East Africa and the Ganges.
WMO Secretary General, Celeste Saulo, said that water is the canary in the coal mine of climate change.
‘‘We receive distress signals in form of extreme rainfall, floods and droughts which wreak a heavy toll on lives, ecosystems and economies … and yet we are not taking the necessary action,’’ she concluded.
