Drone footage shows severe drought hitting river in Brazil – video

 

Drone footage from 17 September shows the Araguaia River drying up, as severe drought grips parts of Brazil. The country is preparing for potential El Niño impacts in late 2026-27, with the Tocantins-Araguaia basin already experiencing severe drought conditions
 

2025 was among driest years on record for world’s rivers, study finds. Analysis of global resources reveals depletion in world’s water savings bank to 42% below normal levels last year

Usually submerged areas of the Danube were exposed in Rasova, Romania, in August amid exceptionally low water levels. Photograph: Robert Ghement/EPA

 

Rivers across the world experienced one of their driest years in more than three decades in 2025, a comprehensive study of global water resources has found.

The assessment of the global water cycle by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reveals a depletion in the world’s water savings bank: the amount of freshwater held on or under the ground, including groundwater, lakes, rivers, snow, ice moisture in the soil and inside plants and trees, was 42% below normal across the world last year.

The impacts of the climate crisis on extreme weather and the creation of so-called weather whiplash events are driving a more erratic and unpredictable water cycle. From melting glaciers to extreme droughts and flash flooding, the world’s rivers are swinging between having too much and too little water.

 

The last seven years have seen the fewest rivers around the world with “normal” flows since 1991. In 2025, one of the warmest years on record, only about a third of rivers were in the normal range, while 36% of the global river basin area had river flows below or well below normal, and 21% were above- and much-above-normal flows, according to the WMO study, using simulations from 13 global hydrological models, driven by observed weather data.

Celeste Saulo, secretary general of the WMO, said: “We are depleting that savings account. Global terrestrial water storage has shown a declining trend since 2014–16 – a persistent, decade-long signal.”

Last year, for the fourth year in a row, each of the world’s 19 major glacial regions lost ice mass. Glaciers have seen their greatest losses of ice mass since the 1990s, and the largest losses are the most recent. In 2025 alone the ice mass loss was 400 gigatons, which adds 1.1mm to global sea levels.

 

The analysis is a comprehensive, science-based assessment of the entire water cycle loop, including river flows, groundwater, evaporation and transpiration, land water storage, and snow and ice. Wayne Jenkinson, director of hydrology at the WMO, said the research was a call to action in the face of a continuing global picture of declining water resources.

“We need to redouble our efforts to improve our understanding of water resources globally,” he said. “This requires increased data collection and sharing; that is how we increase understanding and protection for people’s lives and wellbeing.”

The study is published as rivers across the world struggle against multiple threats caused by climate crisis-induced droughts, pollution and overexploitation.

And the impact on our river systems has direct knock-on impacts for people, their wellbeing and the global economy.

 

This summer record-low water levels on the Danube created an unprecedented energy crisis in Hungary and Romania, after all but one of their nuclear reactors had to shut down because the river was too low to provide water to cool them.

The Mississippi, which is the primary source of water for 50 US municipalities, is threatened by chemical pollution that has created hypoxic dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico, sea level rise that is hastening wetland loss and saltwater intrusion, as well as intermittent droughts. Major African rivers such as the Nile, Niger and Zambezi face significant threats from severe pollution and climate-induced droughts that reduce water levels and harm local ecosystems.

 In England not one river is in good overall ecological and chemical health. They are suffering from a toxic combination of sewage pollution, agricultural pollution, the impact of forever chemicals and overabstraction.

 

The WMO research shows the threat to rivers is continuing and, in some cases, accelerating. In 2025, for the seventh year in a row, the number of river basins with “normal” conditions was in a clear minority: ranging between 34 and 38%, compared with the average of 46% at normal conditions between 1991 and 2020, according to the report.

Across the five years the WMO analysis has taken place, from 2021-25, repeated below-normal river flows were seen in major parts of the Amazon and La Plata basins, North America, central and east Africa, central Asia and the Middle East.

A chemical plant on the Mississippi River upstream from the Quad Cities. Photograph: E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/Getty Images

 

Below-normal to much-below-normal river flows affected much of North America, the La Plata and São Francisco basins of South America, eastern European basins, the Middle East and central Asia.

In each of the past five years, national meteorological and hydrological services around the globe reported record-breaking floods and droughts. Some places have had no recovery time between events.

• Over the next year, in a series called Our Rivers, the Guardian will focus on the environmental challenges facing the world’s rivers, looking at the waterways around the planet that are overengineered or suffocating and drying up, and those that are being opened up again and given new life

Expect even more potholes on UK roads after summer heatwaves, says RAC. Extreme weather has made brittle road surfaces more likely to crack, increasing strain on infrastructure

 

A driver navigates past a deep pothole on a lane near Knutsford, Cheshire, earlier this year. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

by  Amee Joshi and agency

 

The UK’s dilapidated roads are expected to get even worse, with motorists warned to expect a jump in the number of potholes as result of the country’s hottest summer on record.

Potholes are commonly assumed to be caused by cold or wet weather, but long periods of heat can also create long-lasting damage on the roads, according to the RAC.

 

“Intense UV exposure and heat gradually oxidise the bitumen that binds asphalt together, making surfaces more brittle and prone to cracking. Once cracks develop, traffic and later rainfall can quickly turn them into serious defects,” said the company’s head of policy, Simon Williams.

The roads were already in a terrible state after last winter, with only half the network in England and Wales in a good condition after months of rain, the Asphalt Industry Alliance reported earlier this year.

They have been further damaged by the summer’s run of back-to-back heatwaves, with temperatures rising above 38C in some parts of the country.

Mike Hansford, the chief executive of the Road Surface Treatments Association, said: “Extremes in the UK’s weather, including increased summer UV radiation, combined with colder, wetter winter conditions, can accelerate deterioration.”

The extreme heat has been attributed to the climate crisis, with scientists from the Met Office finding that the high temperatures experienced in the UK were 130 times more likely to occur owing to human-induced climate change. An increase in the number of potholes is just one of several ways in which climate chaos is putting the UK’s infrastructure under strain.

Extreme weather can have an effect on road surfaces. Photograph: Simon Belcher/Alamy

Hot, dry weather shrank soil in railway embankments, forcing timetable changes and slower services on some routes. High temperatures even risk making rails buckle, something being looked at as a possible cause for two derailments last month.

UK insurance companies have reported an increase in the number of subsidence claims over July and August as a result of the abnormally hot weather, with the insurer Hastings Direct saying it expects claim volumes “to remain higher than normal through to around October unless sustained rainfall helps restore soil moisture levels”.

According to an RAC report earlier this year, 51% of motorists describe the sorry state of Britain’s roads as their biggest anxiety related to driving, with 83% saying they encounter potholes on most car trips.

 

Williams said these fears were “a reflection both of a long-term lack of investment in road maintenance and repair by local authorities, and of the road surface issues exacerbated by a particularly wet winter, and now an extremely hot summer”.

However, he also expressed optimism about the government’s newly increased response to the pothole problem. He said: “Council highway budgets in England have been increased to a record £1.6bn for 2025-26, and in November’s budget, £7.3bn was allocated for road improvement works between now and the end of the decade, which will allow councils to make long-term maintenance plans.”

The Department for Transport (DfT) has also released new requirements for English councils in June that will push them to prove they are doing more to find long-term solutions to fixing potholes and roads. Under the requirements, local authorities could lose up to a third of their road maintenance funding if they fail to demonstrate they are working to build these solutions.

A DfT spokesperson said: “We know extreme conditions can make potholes worse which is why our record £7.3bn investment is not only delivering smoother roads, but is encouraging councils to use longer term fixes and tackle seasonal challenges.

“This is already bearing fruit with 15% more pothole prevention works carried out last year, and we’re holding councils to account so drivers can be confident that every penny of public money is being spent wisely.”

Sudden sea level rise — tied to El Niño — is about to hit the California coast

Animation showing how Kelvin waves moved across the Pacific and then up from South America to North America between April 16 and September 10, increasing ocean levels as they went. Red represents higher-than-normal sea surface heights. Some data for September is based on forecasts. Courtesy Dillon Amaya Dillon Amaya

By Andrew Freedman

 

Beachgoers wade in the Pacific Ocean at La Jolla's Windansea Beach at sunset on September 4, 2026 in San Diego, CA. Kevin Carter/Getty Images

 

The sea level along California’s coast will increase by about a foot by mid-October due to the influence of El Niño, which is driving a large volume of water northward from offshore of Mexico and Central America.

This water is coming in the form of a coastal “Kelvin wave,” and it will mark the arrival of one of the first significant impacts of the powerhouse El Niño taking shape in the tropical Pacific. According to Dillon Amaya, an oceanographer at North Carolina State University, the wave is a clear signal that El Niño has arrived in California.

“Typically, we think of El Niño and its impact on precipitation, but some of the first indications that El Niño is really occurring are the arrival of these coastally trapped waves,” he said. 

 

A coastal Kelvin wave is not one that a person typically sees at a beach, breaking and crashing. Instead, it’s barely perceptible to the human eye as it slithers northward from offshore of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula at about six miles per hour. It is detectable, however, using satellites that measure changes in ocean heights.

You can’t surf a Kelvin wave, but it does affect surfing. These waves are important because of their role in raising coastal sea levels, which increases the likelihood of damage from astronomical high tides and winter storms that are also affected by El Niño, scientists say. In essence, one El Niño-related phenomenon — sea level rise — is compounding the damage caused by others.

Kelvin waves in the open ocean are massive, slow-moving and slosh up and down, like water in a bathtub. Once they hit land, Kelvin waves can shift direction, moving north and south, parallel to the coast — raising ocean levels by 6 to 12 inches as they go. 

 The ongoing El Niño, which is characterized by much hotter-than-average sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific, is forecast to be the strongest such event on record since at least 1950. El Niño temporarily increases water levels on top of long-term rising sea levels from human-caused climate change. 

 Water levels along the California coastline have already been increasing in other ways tied to El Niño, Amaya said, including an earlier coastal Kelvin wave that reached California in May and June. The elevated sea levels that will result from the upcoming wave will further raise water levels and put the state at greater risk of coastal flooding, he said.

 

These large, undulating Kelvin waves are actually part of what helps El Niño form, transporting heat from the western Pacific Ocean to its central and eastern regions, near the equator. These waves help push huge quantities of ocean heat under the sea surface, in a process known as downwelling. When they reach the central and eastern tropical Pacific, the undersea ocean heat rises, or upwells, increasing ocean temperatures there.

In about 120 days, a Kelvin wave can travel from the western Pacific to the Pacific Northwest coastline of the US, or even as far as the Gulf of Alaska, raising ocean heights as it goes. 

 

“It’s an epic transit,” Amaya said.

In addition, sea levels are also increasing along the West Coast because the hotter waters associated with El Niño are expanding to take up more space.

“The wave would add to what is already there,” Amaya said. The total sea level height, including this latest wave, is anticipated to be 10-to-14 inches higher than normal along the California coast, he said. 

The sun rises on Hurricane Lowell as it tracks near Hawaii on the morning September 7, 2026. Besides raising sea levels along California's coast, El Niño also increases the likelihood of hurricanes in the Pacific that send their own waves towards California. CIRA/CSU & NOAA

 

Patrick Barnard, research director at the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said the ocean height increase puts many coastal residents at risk of flooding.

“Because so many of our communities are built right at sea level on the West Coast, and our extreme water levels don’t vary widely, every 2 to 4 inches of sea level doubles our flood risk,” Barnard said. 

 

Amaya noted that the background sea level rise since the preindustrial era along parts of the California coast has been about one foot, so these El Niño-related changes will double that century-long trend all at once, albeit temporarily.

“El Niño has arrived. This is some of the first evidence that El Niño is impacting the United States.”

Peter’s farm is on ‘flood country’. As Australia’s sea levels rise, safe land is vanishing and costs are huge

Peter Lake's NSW northern rivers property after a flood in 2022 flood. The cattle farm has flooded five times since 2009. Photograph: Peter Lake

 Climate Council forecasts more than 267,000 coastal properties will be damaged by flooding by 2100, costing hundreds of billions of dollars

by Donna Lu 

 

When grazier Peter Lake moved to the Clarence Valley in the New South Wales northern rivers region in 2007, he knew was “buying in flood country with … eyes open”.

His cattle farm, about halfway between Yamba and Grafton, borders the Coldstream River and has flooded five times since 2009.

“Out of 130 acres … in a major flood we would have maybe 15 acres that were flood-free,” he said. Lake has systems in place to prepare for such events, including moving cattle to the dry paddocks, where they would also store fodder to feed the animals.

But the amount of safe ground is shrinking: in the historically big flood in 2022, “we only had just a few acres of flood-free land”. Because of both drought and frequent floods, “we just haven’t been able to successfully grow a fodder crop for some years”.

“If we’re going to have more frequent and more severe major events … we need to change the way we think about how we manage,” Lake said. “If rising sea levels impact on us, it’ll just make property less and less viable.”

 

Grazier Peter Lake on his Clarence Valley cattle farm

 Agricultural damages are among $855.1bn in economic losses projected Australia-wide by the end of the century due to coastal flooding, according to a Climate Council report released on Thursday.

 

The report forecasts that more than 267,000 coastal properties and 2m hectares (4.9m acres) of Australian land will be damaged by flooding by 2100 as sea levels rise.

Queensland (93,157 properties), NSW (71,210) and Western Australia (51,366) are the three states with the greatest number of homes at risk.

The Gold Coast, Brisbane and Melbourne are the metropolitan areas expected to be worst affected.

Coastal areas around Brisbane and the Gold Coast are at significant risk, the Climate Council says. Illustration: Climate Council

The Gold Coast, the country’s most exposed urban area, faces $84.4bn in projected economic losses, while in Melbourne losses are concentrated in low-lying areas around Port Phillip Bay and the Yarra River.

The Climate Council report is based on mapping coastal flooding by 2100, taking into account both sea level rise and storm surges under the climate scenario known as RCP4.5 – which projects a 2.7C increase in global temperature by the end of the century, similar to expected heating based on current policies worldwide.

Coastal areas around Port Phillip Bay are vulnerable to rising seas. Illustration: Climate Council

It was co-authored by Prof Tom Kompas at the University of Melbourne, whose modelling of the economic impacts was also published in the peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports and drew upon localised projections at 239 hotspots around Australia.

Kompas said the costs – an estimated $274.3bn in property losses and $580.7bn in land use damages – were a conservative estimate and did not take into account the additional impacts of coastal erosion or significant ice sheet melt.

He said due to the scale of agricultural losses there was a food security issue potentially coming as well: damage is projected to affect 619,713 hectares (1.5m acres) of farming land.

A map showing coastal areas at risk in NSW and the projected economic damage. Illustration: Climate Council

 

Sea levels have risen, on average by more than 22cm globally since 1900, with human-caused global heating the dominant cause of the rise since 1970. An additional 14cm rise is expected in Australia by 2050, increasing the frequency of permanent inundation and tidal flooding.

Kompas said that while reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit global heating was of paramount importance, “we have to start planning and responding and adapting now”.

“The nice thing about the work is it shows where the hotspots are and what … assets will be impacted. So we can start to plan for how to deal with that.

“The first thing, of course, is not to build on flood plains, which is common still.”

French winemakers forecast 30-year low harvest after severe drought and heat

 

The extreme heat of the summer weather in France has caused grapes to wilt and be scalded. Photograph: sportpoint/Alamy

by  Kim Willsher in Paris

 Estimates suggest drop in production with vineyards also concerned ‘smoke taint’ from wildfires may affect quality

 

French vineyards hit by severe drought and heatwaves are expected to report a 30-year low in wine production after the country’s hottest ever recorded summer, according to the agriculture ministry.

Initial estimates suggest winemakers will produce just under 34m hectolitres from this year’s harvest: a drop of 6% on last year, and 17% less than ‌the 2021-2025 average.

Agreste, the government’s farming food, forestry and fishing statistics body, said the drop was partly caused by a reduction in the number and size of vineyards, but mostly the result of extreme weather conditions.

“The summer was particularly hot and dry: soil drought has intensified throughout the country and heatwaves have caused localised sun scald, scorching, defoliation, and wilting of the grapes, reducing harvest volumes,” it reported.

A grape picker gets to work at the Trois Terres vineyard in Octon, southern France earlier this month. Photograph: Guillaume Horcajuelo/EPA

However, some winemakers say with grape harvests still being conducted it is too early to make credible predictions.

The disappointing forecast comes after an optimistic start to the year, with heavy spring rains that encouraged grape growth. “The hot and dry summer conditions meant a deterioration of the [harvest] forecast,” Agreste reported.

A series of heatwaves brought the highest summer temperatures recorded in France since records began in 1900, with averages of 24C in June, July and August. Almost half of the country recorded temperatures on or above 40C.

Among the worst hit wine regions is Champagne where the grape harvest, which started unusually early in mid August, is predicted to be almost half that of last year. The Jura region in the east was the next worst hit with an estimated 37% loss. This year’s Burgundy-Beaujolais region grape production was expected to be one-third down, Agreste reported.

Winemakers in Bordeaux and the Languedoc-Roussillon as well as those in the south-east and south-west reported higher harvests this year but all except the Savoie region were down on the 2021-2025 five-year average for production.

However, Cécile Mathiaud of the Burgundy wine producers association said she was surprised by the government’s disastrous figures for her region’s vineyards.

“We know we won’t have a full harvest this year, but we have no definite figures and there’s no suggestion the situation is a disaster,” Mathiaud said. “We have some vineyards that have reported not much this year and others where it has been higher than expected.”

The harvest under way early in the morning at Trois Terres. Photograph: Guillaume Horcajuelo/EPA

Some Burgundy vineyards began their harvest in early August but others are collecting the grapes now, she added. “Our reference is the historically low harvest of 2021 when we produced only 1m hectolitres; we think it will be higher this year, but the question is by how much? I have absolutely no idea how the ministry has come up with these figures.”

Agreste said the figures were estimates and definitive results would not be known until regions made official harvest declarations later this year. It added that 2026 grape harvests were “marked by significant regional disparities”.

Wine harvests have traditionally taken place in France between September and mid October, but the climate emergency has brought dates forward slightly each year for the last four decades. This year, the harvest timetable advanced at least a week compared with last year throughout the country. Some vineyards in Bordeaux began two weeks early.

There are also concerns that vines and grapes in some of France’s best-known wine producing regions, including Bordeaux, have been damaged by smoke from rampant wildfires. No major Bordeaux vineyards suffered direct damage from the flames that came within 15km (9 miles) of the city, but there is concern that smoke has entered the grape skins causing “smoke taint” and affecting the taste of the finished wine.

The agriculture ministry would normally issue harvest estimates in early August, but postponed its analysis at the request of the wine industry because of what it described as “the high level of uncertainty surrounding these forecasts” caused by weather conditions and wildfires.

France’s wine sector is already under pressure owing to a decline in demand. Annual wine consumption in the 1960s in France was 127 litres each year compared with 40 litres a year now.

Wine drinking in the US, France’s largest export market, has also dropped and French wines have been hit by Donald Trump’s tariffs.

‘Extremely rare event:’ Miles-long microalgae bloom knocks out most of Israel’s desalination plants

A microalgae bloom has spread along Israel's Mediterranean coast. Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research institute

by  By Laura Paddison

 

A miles-long microalgae bloom in the Mediterranean Sea has been blamed for temporarily knocking offline many of Israel’s major desalination plants this week, threatening its main source of drinking water.

Five of the country’s six coastal desalination plants — which convert seawater into drinkable water — shut down on Sunday, according to Mekorot, Israel’s national water company. Since then, some of these facilities, which are privately owned and operated, have partially resumed operations, but only one was operating at full capacity on Thursday.

“An event of this kind has never occurred before in Israel … it was an extremely rare event,” said Lior Gutman, a spokesperson for Mekorot, although he stressed in roughly 99% of cases, there has been no drinking water shortage. 

 

Still, it’s an alarming situation given the country’s heavy dependence on desalination for drinking water. Israel is arid and has neither big rivers nor abundant rainfall, but its mastery of this technology has made it a water superpower. Desalination now provides at least 65% of its drinking water, with most plants located on the Mediterranean coast.

The problems started at the weekend, as a “sporadic, vast event of contaminates occurred across the Israeli coastline,” said Edo Bar-Zeev, an associate professor in water research at Ben-Gurion University, in Israel. When he and other scientists looked closer, they discovered it was microalgae, tiny organisms that feed on sunlight, carbon dioxide and nutrients in the water — and which can grow rapidly. 

Microscope images of microalgae from the bloom that formed along the Israeli coast. Tali Covas

 

The microalgae bloom — stretching more than a dozen miles at least, according to Bar-Zeev — is believed to have originated in the Nile Delta and traveled northward with the sea’s currents up Israel’s coast. This is “the first time I saw something in this extent,” said Bar-Zeev, who has been testing the coastal water for 20 years.

The country’s desalination facilities mostly use a technology called “reverse osmosis,” where water is pre-treated to remove larger contaminants, before it’s pushed through membranes which filter out salt, bacteria and other molecules to leave clean drinking water. 

 Algae, and the substances they produce, can foul and damage the membranes, said Michael Christopher Low, director of the Middle East Center at the University of Utah. If there’s too much suspended material in the water, the treatment processes cannot keep up. 

 

It’s happened before. A severe “red tide” — a harmful algae bloom — in the Gulf of Oman in 2008 and 2009 affected many desalination plants in that region.

In Israel, the government water system has “stepped in to close the gap” caused by the plant closures, Mekorot’s Gutman said. This has included pumping water from the Sea of Galilee, activating groundwater wells and using national water reserves.

Some cities have faced short-term local restrictions, including on garden irrigation and filling swimming pools, but the the main limitations affected farmers who use drinking water-quality water for irrigation, as opposed to those who use recycled water, Gutman said.

The timing compounded the problem. It happened in summer “when water demand in Israel is at its highest,” he said, adding “the situation has been challenging.” 

Israel's Water Authority places drinking water storage tanks near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, Israel, on August 31, 2026, as part of emergency preparations after five of Israel's six seawater desalination plants were temporarily shut down. Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu/Getty Images

 

A bloom occurs when the right combination of environmental factors in the water come together that allow the algae to grow rapidly, said Tamar Guy-Haim, a marine ecologist at the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute. These include nutrients, temperature, light, currents and mixing.

Mekorot said this recent bloom was part of “very unusual combination of factors,” including a sea storm that increased turbidity — the amount of suspended matter in the water — and raised sea temperatures to 86 Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) and above. 

 

The extent of the disruption is striking. Desalination facilities have been forced to close before due to algae or jellyfish, “but multiple facilities over the large portion of our coast is something that is definitely abnormal,” Ben-Zeev said.

It’s something the country needs to figure out how to deal with — and will, he added. “It’s a fair estimation that this will not be a once-in-a-lifetime kind of event … you can assume that this will occur more and more through climate change.”

As the planet heats up, driven by humans burning fossil fuels, the oceans are changing. Temperatures are at record highs, currents are shifting and stronger storms wash more pollutants into the water, including sewage and fertilizers, which can trigger huge algae blooms. 

The Sorek desalination plant near the Israeli city of Rishon LeZion on November 22, 2021. This plant was one of the five temporarily knocked offline. Gil Cohen Magen/Xinhua/Getty Images

 

This temporary crisis also exposes a broader concern, experts say.

Desalination is becoming increasingly popular, especially as the climate crisis drives more severe heat and drought, undermining water security. But this growing dependence on a centralized, technical solution carries risks. “This event is causing considerable alarm and even some criticism that the system is too vulnerable to a dramatic disruption,” Low said. 

 

This could be natural or climate change-driven events, but there’s also the possibility of military and cyber threats. Desalination plants in the Gulf have been targeted and damaged during the US-Iran war, raising significant alarm in a region that depends overwhelmingly on this technology. Hackers have also targeted water facilities, including in the US.

Oil spills are another big concern. “It’s not if, it’s just when an oil spill in the vicinity of desalination facilities will occur,” Ben-Zeev said. A lot of plants are in water-scarce countries that are also big oil producers, such as the Gulf states.

A spill could potentially take plants offline for a much longer time than this microalgae bloom, he added. “That to me is way more worrying.”