The water cycle you learned about in school is off balance. The consequences affect everyone on Earth

illuminem summarises for you the essential news of the day, reviewed by our editorial team. Read the full piece on CNN or enjoy below:

🗞️ Driving the news: The World Meteorological Organization's State of Global Water Resources Report, published Thursday and covering 2025, finds the water cycle becoming more erratic and unpredictable
• Satellite data shows 42% of the world had freshwater storage below historical norms last year, with total water stored on land declining globally since around 2016

🔭 The context: 2025 was among the driest years for the world's rivers in 35 years
• It was the seventh consecutive year of abnormal river flows, affecting much of North America, parts of South America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia
• Two-thirds of monitored wells fell outside historical norms, with the balance shifting further into deficit
• All glacier regions lost ice for a fourth straight year, shedding enough water between 2023 and 2025 to fill roughly 560 million Olympic swimming pools

🌍 Why it matters for the planet: Glaciers, snow and ice form the slow part of the cycle, accumulating over long periods and buffering against single bad years
• What WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo calls the planet's savings account, now being depleted as  roughly two billion people depend on glacier-fed water
• Without that buffer, a single drought translates directly into crisis, and the past five years have all brought record-breaking floods and droughts with little recovery time between them

⏭️ What's next: Saulo warns the strengthening El Niño will raise drought risk in some regions and flood risk in others this year
• The report draws on data from over 60 countries but notes critical gaps, often in Asia and Africa where extremes are most severe

💬 One quote: "Traditionally these slow reserves have acted as the planet's savings account: a buffer that absorbs bad years so that a single drought or a single dry season does not translate directly into a water crisis. We are depleting that savings account" — Celeste Saulo, Secretary-General, World Meteorological Organization.

📈 One stat: 42% of the world had freshwater storage below historical norms in 2025.

Subscribe to our free newsletters to never miss a beat in sustainability.

The world needs sustainability knowledge. At illuminem, no interest group or shareholder can influence our work. Thank you for supporting our mission to make high-quality and independent sustainability information free for all. Every contribution helps. Thank you for donating today