Central and Eastern Europe is losing groundwater, WMO says. A third of monitored wells worldwide were below normal, not two-thirds

Central and Eastern Europe is among the regions where groundwater is in the worst shape, and in 2025 its condition worsened further. This follows from a report on the state of the world's water resources published on Thursday by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The chapter on groundwater was prepared for it by the IGRAC centre, according to which below-average levels in this part of Europe "not only persisted but intensified". WMO ↗ IGRAC ↗

However, the key figure about wells reached German and Austrian media in an inaccurate form. According to a report by the dpa news agency, almost two-thirds of monitored wells had less water last year than the long-term average. ORF ↗ Yet according to IGRAC, only a third of the stations were below normal. IGRAC ↗

Two-thirds of wells does not mean two-thirds with a water shortage

The sentence about two-thirds comes from WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. According to the press release, she said that almost two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide showed conditions outside the historical norm in 2025, and that the balance had shifted further toward deficit compared to 2024, not toward recovery. WMO ↗

However, "outside the norm" includes both directions. IGRAC, which analyzed data from 43,529 stations in 51 countries, provides a breakdown: 65 percent of stations were outside the normal range, of which 34 percent were below normal to severely below normal, compared with 25 percent a year earlier. 31 percent of stations were above normal, compared with 37 percent in 2024. IGRAC ↗

The shift toward deficit is thus significant, but a third of the monitored stations had below-normal levels. Yet the dpa report, which was carried by Austria's ORF and Berlin's Tagesspiegel on Thursday morning, states that almost two-thirds of wells had less water than the long-term average. ORF ↗ Tagesspiegel ↗

The Slovak daily Pravda quoted the statement accurately: "values outside the historical norm." Pravda ↗

Europe on the WMO map: east in deficit, north above normal

The report recorded persistent and widespread below-normal to severely below-normal groundwater levels in Central and Eastern Europe, the central United States, parts of Mexico, Chile and Brazil, northern South Africa, northwestern India, and parts of southern Australia. According to the WMO, this points to a gradual depletion of reserves and a multi-year drying trend. WMO ↗

Europe, however, is not uniform. The report notes above-average groundwater levels in parts of France and in much of Northern Europe. WMO ↗

Other indicators also paint a poor picture for the eastern part of the continent. River flows in Eastern European basins were below normal to severely below normal in 2025, total land water storage was also below average, and according to the WMO, Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East were hit by severe drought. Snow was below normal across all of Europe. WMO ↗

Rivers and glaciers

According to the WMO, 2025 was one of the driest years for river flows in the past 35 years, with below-average flows affecting 36 percent of the world's basin area. The figure is based on simulations from 13 global hydrological models, which incorporate observed weather. For the seventh consecutive year, only 34 to 38 percent of basins had normal conditions, compared with the 1991–2020 average of 46 percent. WMO ↗

The Czech portal Novinky.cz wrote about the smallest number of rivers with normal flow "in the history of observations" and classified 2025 among the driest years "in the history of observations." It did not state the time range, while the report refers to the period since 1991 and to the last 35 years. Novinky.cz ↗

According to the report, glaciers lost 408 gigatons of mass in the 2025 hydrological year, corresponding to a 1.1-millimeter rise in ocean levels. All major glaciated regions recorded ice loss for the fourth consecutive year, totaling 1,400 gigatons of water for 2023 to 2025 combined. In regions with smaller glaciers, including Central Europe, the so-called peak water point may already have been reached, according to the WMO — the point at which a melting glacier yields the most water. WMO ↗

The report's main findings are summarized in a one-minute animation that the WMO published on the day of release. WMO ↗

Summer 2026 is not in the report, SHMÚ has already measured it

The report covers five years through the end of 2025. The low levels of the Rhine and Danube from this year's hot summer are therefore not included, the dpa agency noted. Tagesspiegel ↗

The Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute assessed July 2026 as below average for groundwater. At the start of the month, more than 75 percent of monitoring sites showed mild drought to drought conditions, and by the end of July, groundwater levels or spring yields had dropped at 93 percent of all monitored sites. SHMÚ ↗

According to SHMÚ, the most unfavorable situation was in the Bodrog basin, where groundwater levels at several observation sites approached or fell below the long-term minimum, for example at the borehole in Koškovce. In the Bodva and Slaná basins, spring yields approached the long-term minimum. SHMÚ ↗

The Danube in Bratislava had an average flow in July 2026 of just 35.6 percent of the long-term July average. According to SHMÚ, this is the lowest July flow since measurements began in 1900. SHMÚ ↗

Also read: Dry Danube could have cost Europe 16 billion euros, Bulgarian newspapers write. The estimate from which they derived the figure does not mention the river.

What the numbers do not tell us

The WMO and SHMÚ figures cannot be directly compared. IGRAC compares with the years 2001 to 2020, SHMÚ compares groundwater with the years 1981 to 2010, and Danube flow in Bratislava with the years 1961 to 2000. IGRAC ↗ SHMÚ ↗

The global picture rests on data provided by WMO member countries. Coverage has expanded, but Africa and Asia, according to the report, still remain among the regions with the fewest hydrological observations, even though they accounted for at least half of the recorded water-related extremes and more than 80 percent of deaths over the past five years. The WMO also warns that a strengthening El Niño will increase drought risk in some areas and flood risk in others. WMO ↗

*Illustrative photo: low water level of the Danube in Budapest, view from Margaret Bridge, parliament building on the left, August 2, 2026. Author: Szilas / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.*