Online Reporter
Sifelani Tsiko
Fact Check Editor
AFRICA is bearing a huge burden of the changing water cycle, which is increasingly becoming erratic – alternating between periods of massive flooding and drought due to climate change, according to the latest United Nations World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) report released recently.
The report indicated that the global water cycle was becoming ever more unpredictable, with shrinking glaciers, droughts, unbalanced river basins and severe floods wreaking havoc.
This, the WMO said, had profound effects on African economies and communities.
Africa is now facing a heavy toll from climate change, with many countries having to spend more to respond to climate extremes.
The State of Global Water Resources report says only about one-third of the global river basins had “normal” conditions in 2024.
The rest were either above or below normal – the sixth consecutive year of clear imbalance.
2024 was the third straight year with widespread glacier loss across all regions. Many small-glacier regions have already reached or are about to pass the so-called peak water point – when a glacier’s melting reaches its maximum annual runoff, after which this decreases due to glacier shrinkage.
The Amazon Basin and other parts of South America, as well as southern Africa, were gripped by severe drought in 2024, whilst there were wetter-than-normal conditions in central, western and eastern Africa, parts of Asia and Central Europe, it says.
“Water sustains our societies, powers our economies and anchors our ecosystems. And yet the world’s water resources are under growing pressure and – at the same time – more extreme water-related hazards are having an increasing impact on lives and livelihoods,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.
“Reliable, science-based information is more important than ever before because we cannot manage what we do not measure. The WMO’s State of Global Water Resources Report 2024 is part of WMO’s commitment to provide that knowledge,” she said.
It was wetter-than-average in Central and western Africa, the Lake Victoria basin in Africa, Kazakhstan and Southern Russia, Central Europe, Pakistan and Northern India, Southern Iran, and North-Eastern China
In the past six years, only about one-third of the global river catchment area had normal discharge conditions compared to the 1991-2020 average.
This means that two-thirds have too much or too little water – reflecting the increasingly erratic hydrological cycle.
There was much below-normal discharge across key river basins, including the Amazon, São Francisco, Paraná, and Orinoco in South America, and the Zambezi, Limpopo, Okavango, and Orange basins in southern Africa.
Extensive flooding occurred in West African basins in Senegal, Niger, Lake Chad, Volta). There was above normal river discharge across Central Europe and parts of Asia, swelling major basins including the Danube, Ganges, Godavari, and Indus.
Nearly all, out of the selected 75 main lakes across the globe, saw above or much above normal temperatures in July, affecting water quality.
Despite producing far lower greenhouse gas emissions than other continents, Africa’s temperatures have risen more rapidly than the global average.
The continent is now reportedly losing on average 2 percent – 5 percent of gross domestic product responding to deadly heatwaves, heavy rains, floods, cyclones, and prolonged droughts.
Despite pledges to Africa for funds for climate mitigation and adaptation projects in recent years, the continent receives less than 1 percent of annual global climate financing.
