This dataset contains quality-controlled in situ river discharge observations used in the river discharge analysis of the 2024 edition of the State of Global Water Resources Report. The data include daily and monthly discharge values from 1833 stations in 25 countries covering the years 1991-2024. They were contributed by WMO Members through their National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) to the Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC). The report, published annually by WMO, provides a comprehensive quantitative overview of global water resources, with a focus on hydrological variability and trends. It supports countries, decision makers and stakeholders in understanding the current state of global water resources, identifying hotspots and supporting effective water management strategies.
Das Forschungsprojekt soll auf den vorangegangenen Vorhaben 'Ressourcennutzung in Deutschland' aufbauen und die dort begonnene Reihe 'Ressourcenbericht für Deutschland' wissenschaftlich weiterentwickeln. Ziel ist die Erstellung des 'Ressourcenberichts 2026'. Dabei soll das Schwerpunktthema 'Kreislaufwirtschaft' sowie das Thema 'Nexus' umgesetzt werden. Der Bericht untersucht statistische Kennzahlen und Trends im Themenfeld Ressourcennutzung und Kreislaufwirtschaft und analysiert und diskutiert die vielfältigen Zusammenhänge zwischen Ressourcenentnahme, Ressourcenkonsum und wirtschaftlicher Entwicklung. Zu den wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten gehören die Berechnung der Hauptindikatoren einschließlich der Kreislaufwirtschaftsindikatoren, die Verbesserung und Harmonisierung der Datengrundlagen und -methoden und die Analyse von Primär- und Sekundärrohstoffflüssen (Sektoren, Bedarfsfelder).
Recent water trends have serious future implications. This warning once again highlights the importance of the State of Global Water Resources Report, published annually by the WMO since 2022. In its 5th edition, which was presented on 17 September 2026, it provides a semi-decadal overview of the status of global freshwater resources utilizing modelling, remote sensing and in situ observation-based data products. This 5th anniversary highlights the success and importance of the report, which helps in identification of hotspots at a global scale to inform planning and policy making and promotes monitoring and data sharing. Over five editions, the report has expanded substantially in scope, methodology, data coverage and institutional engagement. The first edition, covering 2021, focused on three variables: river discharge, total water storage and cryosphere water resources. Even back then, the river discharge analysis in the report was based on in situ data received from WMO Members represented by NMHSs, primarily obtained via the GRDC database. Over the years it has expanded to 15 hydrological variables and the 2025 edition of this report was enhanced by the addition of new chapters on lake ice extent and water quality parameters. Data on soil moisture and water quality have been provided by our partner data centres the International Soil Moisture Network (ISMN) and the Global Freshwater Quality Database GEMStat, respectively. One of the most important developments over the five editions has been the growth in observed data contributions. The number of countries providing river discharge data increased approximately 7.5-fold, from 7 in 2021 to 52 in 2025, while the number of river discharge stations rose from 14 in the first edition to 3,115 in the current one. River discharge observations are now also complemented by data on a further ~500 stations derived from space-based observations that help to address spatial and temporal gaps. This expansion has been driven by the growth in Member participation and enabled, in parallel, by progressive improvements in the methods used to request, collect, process and integrate the data. However, Africa and Asia together accounted for only about 7% of the stations included in the assessment, while South America accounted for 10%. In its semi-decadal statement, the report shows that the share of global basin area experiencing normal discharge conditions has remained below the historical mean in each of the past seven years. Across the five reporting years, recurring below-normal river discharge was observed in major parts of the Amazon and La Plata basins, North America, Central and East Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East. Overall, 2025 was a dry year for river discharge worldwide, and one of the driest in 35 years (1991–2025). Annual river discharge in 2025 was above to much above normal across South, East and South-East Asia, parts of northern South America, and selected African and north-eastern and eastern Australian basins. Below- to much-below-normal river discharge affected several major regions, including much of North America, the La Plata and São Francisco basins of South America, Eastern European basins, the Middle East and Central Asia. Africa showed contrasting river discharge conditions, with above-normal flows in the Senegal, Niger, Lake Chad, Orange and Limpopo basins, but much-below-normal discharge in the Nile, Congo and Zambezi basins. The report shows that water data availability has improved, but gaps remain especially in the areas most affected by water-related disasters such as Asia and Africa. Continued data sharing is therefore essential to improve the geographical representativeness and robustness of the global assessment, validate modelled and satellite-based information, and strengthen the evidence base for water resource management, early warning systems and climate adaptation actions. These efforts are also supporting the objectives of the Early Warnings for All (EW4All) initiative, the WMO Hydrological Observing System (WHOS) and the WMO Global Hydrological Status and Outlook System (HydroSOS). Together, these components form an end-to-end chain than ranges from observation and data exchange through operational status and outlook products to the annual global assessment provided in this report, all underpinned by the WMO Unified Data Policy. Further information and the full report are available at the website of WMO .
On April 14, 2026, the third RivEx community meeting took place online, focusing on “In situ Observations & Satellite Observations”. Simon Mischel from GRDC was invited to present on the “Role of GRDC in the framework of RivEx: Delivering the Observational Foundation”, while MJ Tourian from the University of Stuttgart gave a talk about “Rivers from Space: Monitoring Rivers with Altimetry and Imaging Satellites—Progress and Challenges”. In his talk, Simon gave a brief introduction into the work of GRDC and highlighted the importance of ground-based (“in situ”) measurements for Earth observation. Thereby he showed how satellite data can help to extend in situ time series and how they can support data collection, such as for last year’s WMO State of Global Water Resources Report. Finally, he suggested ways in which RivEx and GRDC could collaborate in the future and develop a shared data foundation together. The River Experiment (RivEx) is a core initiative of the Global Energy and Water Exchanges program (GEWEX), part of the broader World Climate Research Programme (WCRP). RivEx aims to improve scientific understanding of river systems as critical components of the global freshwater cycle and to address key knowledge gaps in hydrology. Click here to access our RivEx station catalogue . Links: Presentations on Youtube Slides of GRDC presentation Schedule of Community Meetings
Hydrological science depends on reliable observations. At the same time, many hydrological datasets are distributed across numerous national and regional services, each with its own access routes, documentation, and terms of use. This fragmentation can make it difficult to clearly document where data come from and to reproduce data retrieval in a consistent way. To provide more transparent and reproducible access to hydrological observations, GRDC has developed hydrodownloadR . The R package offers a standardized way to discover hydrological stations and download daily time series such as discharge, water level, water temperature and selected water-quality parameters directly from public national and regional APIs. Transparency in data retrieval is crucial because hydrological assessments and scientific results must be explainable and verifiable across institutions. This is particularly relevant for the annually released WMO State of the Global Water Resources Report , for which GRDC provides data. The hydrodownloadR package supports data retrieval workflows for both routine GRDC data updates and the WMO report. However, the package can also benefit users who require stations that are not yet included in the GRDC database. In such cases, the package provides a straightforward way to access time series directly from the original provider while keeping the data source explicit. It is important that hydrodownloadR , where available, highlights licensing and terms of use information for each API. Furthermore it is designed to access services responsibly by avoiding excessive requests. Nevertheless, users remain responsible for complying with the providers’ terms of use and citation requirements. Coverage and available parameters depend on the underlying public APIs and their data policies. Call to action: If you know a public hydrology API or you operate one, please share with us the documentation link, licensing information, terms of use and, if possible, stable endpoints. Also, if you encounter errors or unexpected behavior, please report them via the project’s GitHub issue tracker so we can address them efficiently. This will help to further improve the package and optimize the discoverability and accessibility of hydrological data. Links: Documentation Source code and issue tracker
The GRDC river discharge dataset underlying the WMO “State of Global Water Resources Report 2024” is now publicly available. It has been published on Zenodo and can be freely accessed and reused by the scientific community and the general public. The dataset contains quality-controlled in situ river discharge observations used in the river discharge analysis of the 2024 edition of the report. The data include daily and monthly discharge values from 1833 stations in 41 countries covering the years 1991-2024. They were contributed by WMO Members through their National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) to the Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC). The report, published annually by WMO, provides a comprehensive quantitative overview of global water resources, with a focus on hydrological variability and trends. It supports countries, decision makers and stakeholders in understanding the current state of global water resources, identifying hotspots and supporting effective water management strategies. With the publication of the underlying data, GRDC and WMO aim to promote transparency and support the reuse of data for research, analysis, and decision-making processes. We welcome feedback and are interested in learning about applications and studies that build on these data. Link to the dataset: https://zenodo.org/records/19126732 Link to the report: https://doi.org/10.59327/WMO/WATER/2024
Seit dem Jahr 2016 veröffentlicht das Umweltbundesamt (UBA) regelmäßig einen Bericht zur Situation der Nutzung natürlicher Ressourcen in Deutschland. Der UBA-Ressourcenbericht untersucht die vielfältigen Zusammenhänge zwischen Rohstoffkonsum, Rohstoffentnahme, globalem Handel und wirtschaftlicher Entwicklung und wirft ebenso einen Blick auf strömende Ressourcen wie Wind, Sonne und Wasser sowie die Umweltauswirkungen der Ressourcennutzung. Das vorliegende Factsheet fasst ausgewählte Ergebnisse des Ressourcenberichts 2022 zusammen. Der nächste und vierte Ressourcenbericht für Deutschland erscheint im Herbst 2026.
Abnormal is the new normal. This is one of the key messages of the new State of Global Water Resources report 2024, which was published on Wednesday, 18 September 2025 by WMO. The State of the Global Water Resources report is now in its fourth year and gives a comprehensive overview on the status of the global water resources such as river discharge, reservoirs, lakes, groundwater levels, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, terrestrial water storage and snow cover and glaciers. This helps in identification of hotspots at a global scale to inform planning and policy making and promotes monitoring and data sharing. GRDC has again supported the acquisition of global discharge data and luckily an increased engagement in terms of data sharing from WMO Member States could be reported. The number of river discharge stations included in the report increased thereby significantly from 713 stations in 26 countries in the last year up to 2,777 stations in 41 countries in 2024. For the first time, here also the Remote Sensing-based Extension of GRDC (RSEG) dataset was used, which extends the GRDC time series using remote sensing data. This dataset has been developed by the Institute of Geodesy, University of Stuttgart, using GRDC data. For each of the variables presented in the chapters, the anomaly was calculated by comparing the state in the year 2024 to the annual long-term means obtained from the historical period (observed and historical, respectively). One of the alarming key messages include that 2024 is the 6th year in a row showing an erratic hydrological cycle. Around 60% of rivers globally showed either too much or too little water. Overall, 2024 was dry and hot, but marked disparities appear in regional patterns: While certain areas suffered severe drought, others endured multiple floods. In addition, all glaciated regions in the world reported ice loss for 2024. Overall, the report highlights that investments in global water resources monitoring are urgently needed. Although the 2024 report benefited from increased data sharing and participation by WMO Members, there are still significant gaps in global water monitoring and open data sharing. This emphasizes the need for continued progress in these areas, particularly in Africa, South America, and Asia. Further information and the full report are available at the website of WMO .
After its 35 th birthday last year, GRDC has achieved many successes in 2024. GRDC relies on the relationship with data providers and their support for the database. Building on this partnership, GRDC collected river discharge data from 44 countries last year. In 2024, 1772 stations could be updated so that the total number of stations in the GRDC database has grown to 10,836. In parallel, also the number of data requests from the data portal has constantly increased during the last years, reaching more than 13,000 downloads in 2024. The increase in downloads is reflected in the publication of scientific papers which include data from GRDC. Over the last five years, more than 100 papers have been published each year. Building on the success of the WMO State of the Global Water Resources Report 2021 and 2022, GRDC has also supported the collection of discharge data for the 2023 report. In the last year, GRDC was able to further increase the number of participating countries to 54 and 713 stations in total. The report for the year 2023 can be accessed at: https://wmo.int/publication-series/state-of-global-water-resources-2023 With respect to outreach, GRDC was able to successfully present its activities to the public. The team was present at several international conferences and is currently involved in the preparation of different scientific articles. Highlights were also the release of the new website in September and the 15 th Steering Committee meeting in June 2024. Since December, GRDC has also been conducting a user survey in order to improve its products in the future. The user survey is still active and can be accessed at: https://survey.lamapoll.de/GRDC-User-Survey We at GRDC would like to express our sincere gratitude to our users and data providers. We are continuously working to improve relations with data providers for a better data exchange as well as to facilitate easier access to data and products to our users. GRDC is grateful for the high level of cooperation already achieved. Together with the GRDC team, I personally wish you good health and all the best for 2025. Simon Mischel
The year 2023 was the hottest year on record and the driest year for rivers in the last three decades. This is one of the key messages of the new State of Global Water Resources report 2023, which was published on Monday, 7 October 2024 by WMO. In its third edition, the report again gives a comprehensive overview on the status of the global hydrological cycle, which becomes more erratic due to climate change. The results show that river discharge and reservoir inflow suffer from five consecutive years of below-normal conditions. Glaciers experienced the largest mass loss in 50 years, with the second year of widespread ice loss globally in 2023. But in addition to droughts, there were also extensive flood events affecting communities, agriculture and ecosystems. For the compilation of this year’s report, again a large amount of observed and modelled data from National Meteorological and Hydrological Services and other organizations and experts was used. This also includes data from GRDC, which was used to support the modelling of global discharge. The number of river discharge stations included in the report increased thereby significantly from 273 stations in 14 countries in 2022 to 713 stations in 33 countries in 2023. For the first time, here also the Remote Sensing-based Extension of GRDC (RSEG) dataset was evaluated, which extends the GRDC time series using remote sensing data. This dataset has been developed by the Institute of Geodesy, University of Stuttgart, using GRDC data. It is intended to be included in future editions of the report. Further information and the full report are available at the website of WMO .
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