Guwahati: India’s groundwater levels have been showing a persistent decline, with the trend pointing to growing pressure on the country’s underground water reserves, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) State of Global Water Resources 2025 report.

While falling groundwater levels have long been documented, particularly across northern and north-western India, the latest assessment indicates that the decline has continued over several years. The trend suggests an imbalance between groundwater extraction and natural recharge.

The WMO report identified persistent groundwater deficits during 2022-2025 in parts of India as well as regions across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, southern Africa and Australia. It cited over-abstraction as an important factor behind groundwater depletion in several areas.

Globally, 34 per cent of groundwater monitoring stations recorded below-normal or much-below-normal levels in 2025, up from 25 per cent in 2024. Meanwhile, around 31 per cent of observation stations registered above-normal or much-above-normal groundwater levels.

The WMO cautioned that these figures are based only on regions where groundwater monitoring data are available. Groundwater conditions were assessed against the 2001–2020 reference period, allowing researchers to identify deviations from the long-term average.

According to the report, the observed groundwater trends point to cumulative depletion and a multi-year drying pattern in several parts of the world, including India.

The latest assessment is part of the WMO’s annual State of Global Water Resources report, which has now been published for five consecutive years. The longer data series provides comparable information on key components of the global water cycle and helps identify emerging long-term trends.

The WMO also highlighted broader concerns over global freshwater availability. According to the organisation, 2025 was among the driest years for rivers globally in more than three decades, continuing a longer-term decline in freshwater storage alongside the retreat of glaciers.

Northern India also experienced below-normal terrestrial water storage in 2025, the report noted.

WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo compared global terrestrial water storage to a savings account that is being steadily depleted.

She said terrestrial water storage has recorded a declining trend since 2014–2016, describing it as a persistent, decade-long signal. She also noted that every major glaciated region recorded ice-mass loss for the fourth consecutive year.

Saulo further pointed to groundwater as another indicator of growing water stress, saying that nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide recorded conditions outside their historical range in 2025, with groundwater conditions shifting further towards deficit compared with the previous year.

The findings underline growing concerns over groundwater sustainability, particularly in regions where extraction continues to outpace recharge.