World Water Development Report 2025

What’s in the News?

UNESCO has published the World Water Development Report 2025, presenting the latest scientific understanding of the role that mountains and glaciers play in the global water crisis.

Key findings of the report

Glaciers across the globe are rapidly thinning, with those in the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region experiencing the most dramatic losses due to climate change — retreating 65 per cent faster in 2011-2020 than in the previous decade.
The report highlights that, if global temperatures rise by 1.5 degrees°C to 2°C, glacier volume in the HKH region could decline by 30-50 per cent by 2100.
The report stressed that the water governance in mountain regions is significantly weaker than in lowland areas. Particularly in the HKH, effective transboundary cooperation is lacking, with mutual distrust posing a key barrier to data sharing.

Hindu Kush Himalayas

Stretching over 3,500 kilometres across eight countries — Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan — the HKH mountains feed ten major river basins.
They are home to 240 million people, with an estimated 1.65 billion more downstream depending on their waters for drinking and sanitation, agriculture, hydropower and ecosystem services.
Often referred to as the “Third Pole” or the “Water Tower of Asia”, this region stores more ice and snow than anywhere else on Earth outside of the Arctic and Antarctic.

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