brahmaputra

According to a new U.N. report, the world’s rivers had their driest year in at least three decades. Record heat and droughts in many places contributed to low levels of water in many of the world’s rivers.

The world faces problems of either too much or too little water. The warming climate has fueled both powerful storms with heavy rainfall and intense droughts around the globe.

Last year was the hottest year on record, and it’s a record that is unlikely to last long. The Mississippi River and Amazon River basins were at all-time lows. Major rivers with headwaters in the Himalayas – the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Mekong Rivers – were all unusually dry.

According to the World Meteorological Organizations State of Global Water Resources Report, nearly half of the nearly 1,000 rivers tracked around the world had below-normal levels of water. Only 17% had above-average levels. Over the past 32 years, on average only a quarter of the rivers monitored had below-normal water levels and last-year’s 45% was the largest ever.

Last year’s severe heat shrank glaciers that are a crucial source of meltwater that feeds rivers. Glaciers lost more ice last year than they have in at least 50 years.

More than half of the world’s population lives within a couple of miles of a body of fresh water. The places with the highest population densities around the world are almost all near large rivers. Rivers provide freshwater for irrigation, consumption, and transportation and are an important source of energy. Historically, they have played an important role in the development of human society. The shrinking of rivers is a big deal.

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World’s Rivers Are Driest They Have Been in Decades

Photo, posted August 22, 2023, courtesy of Radek Kucharski via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The great mountain ranges of central Asia, including the Himalayas, contain the third-largest deposit of ice and snow in the world, trailing only Antarctica and the Arctic. The Himalayan range contains about 15,000 glaciers, and is part of a region widely referred to as the Third Pole due to its extraordinary reserves of freshwater.

But in recent years, scientists have observed an increase in the rate of Himalayan glacier loss. According to a new study led by researchers from the University of Leeds in the UK, the accelerating melting of the Himalayan glaciers threatens the water supply of millions of people in Asia.

In the study, researchers reconstructed the reach of the Himalayan glaciers during the Little Ice Age, which was the last major glacier expansion 400-700 years ago. They found that these glaciers began losing ice 10 times faster during the modern era. In fact, the glaciers have shrunk from a peak of nearly 11,000 square miles to around 7,500 square miles today.

This exceptional acceleration of melting of the Himalayan glaciers could have significant implications. Hundreds of millions of people rely on Asia’s major river systems for food and energy, and depend on these glaciers to feed rivers during the dry seasons. These rivers include the Brahmaputra, Ganges, and Indus. The changing global climate could disastrously impact water resources and livelihoods of the Greater Himalayan region.

According to the research team, people living in these regions have already seen changes that are unlike anything witnessed for centuries. This study is the latest to confirm that these changes are accelerating and pose a significant threat to entire nations and regions.

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Himalayan glaciers melting at ‘exceptional rate’

Photo, posted March 13, 2018, courtesy of Sarunas Burdulis via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Rivers are drying up

According to a new U.N. report, the world’s rivers had their driest year in at least three decades. Record heat and droughts in many places contributed to low levels of water in many of the world’s rivers.

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Melting Himalayan Glaciers | Earth Wise

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