United Nations World Water Development Report 2025 News

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United Nations World Water Development Report Latest News

The 2025 UN world water development report says that Retreating glaciers threaten the food and water supply of 2 billion people around the world.

About United Nations World Water Development Report

WWDR is UN-Water’s flagship report on water and sanitation issues.
It offers an authoritative and comprehensive assessment of the overall state, use and management of the world’s freshwater resources .
Launched on World Water Day (March 22), the report focuses on a different theme each year and gives policy recommendations to decision-makers by offering best practices and in-depth analyses.
The WWDR is published by UNESCO on behalf of UN-Water and its production is coordinated by the UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme.

Highlights of the WWDR 2025

Theme: Mountains and glaciers – Water towers
The report says that “all mountain ranges” have shown evidence of warming since the early 20th century.
It warns that, as global temperatures rise, more mountain precipitation will fall as rain instead of snow, causing snowpacks to thin and melt earlier in the year.
It finds that receding snow and ice cover in mountain regions could have “severe” consequences for people and nature.
This acceleration in snowpack melt often causes river flow to increase in glacier-fed water basins and rivers in the short term.
However, once the snow melts beyond a certain threshold, a “peak water” point is passed and river flow declines again.
The report says there is “strong evidence” that this “peak water” point has already been passed in the glacial-fed rivers of the tropical Andes, western Canada and the Swiss Alps.
Meanwhile, many glaciers have disappeared entirely. For example, Colombia has lost 90% of its glacial area since the mid-19th century, according to the report.
It warns that, as the climate warms, many glaciers will “inevitably” disappear over the coming decades. It points to projections that suggest that warming of 1.5-4C will cause glaciers to lose 26-41% of their 2015 mass by 2100.
The report highlights a wide range of impacts, including reduced water for drinking and agriculture, stress on local ecosystems and increased risk of “devastating” glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs).
Retreating glaciers threaten the food and water supply of 2 billion people around the world.
Two-thirds of all irrigated agriculture in the world is likely to be affected in some way by receding glaciers and dwindling snowfall in mountain regions, driven by the climate crisis.