Indo-Gangetic Plain drying up? Water storage declined, ‘stream flow’ rose in Ganga, Indus basins last year, says WMO

Subject: Geography

Context-

The WMO released its first State of Global Water Resources 2021 in order to assess the effects of climate, environmental and societal change on the Earth’s water resources.

About the report-

The aim of this annual stocktake is to support the monitoring and management of global freshwater resources.
The report focuses on three major areas:
- Streamflow, the volume of water flowing through a river channel at any given time.
- Terrestrial water storage (TWS) — all water on the land surface and in the sub-surface.
- The cryosphere (frozen water).

Report highlights-

Large areas of the globe recorded drier-than-normal conditions in 2021 despite a prolonged La Niña event.
The area with below-average streamflow was approximately two times larger than the above-average area, in comparison to the 30-year hydrological average.
Southern and northern China (the Amur river basin) were characterized by above-average discharge, similar to some basins in northern India.
In India, headwaters of the Ganges River were characterized by above- to much above-normal discharge.
Major Indian river basins (the Brahmaputra, Ganges and Indus), as well as other important river basins in Asia (Huang He, also known as Yellow, and Mekong), exhibit a gradual decline in TWS over the period 2002-2021.
On a longer-term basis, the report pointed out several hotspots with a negative trend in terrestrial water storage including Brazil’s Rio São Francisco basin, Patagonia, the Ganga and Indus headwaters, and the southwestern US.

World Meteorological Organization (WMO)-

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is an intergovernmental organization with a membership of 192 Member States and Territories.
India is a member of WMO.
It originated from the International Meteorological Organization (IMO), which was established after the 1873 Vienna International Meteorological Congress.
Established by the ratification of the WMO Convention on 23rd March 1950, WMO became the specialized agency of the United Nations for meteorology (weather and climate), operational hydrology and related geophysical sciences.’
WMO is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.