India's groundwater levels are declining persistently, according to the State of Global Water Resources 2025 report of the World Meteorological Organization. Falling water tables are well known in the north and north-west of the country, but the global assessment warns that the decline has now persisted for several years — a rupture in the water balance in which more groundwater is being extracted than recharged.

'Persistent groundwater deficits were observed during 2022–2025 in parts of the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, India, southern Africa and Australia, with over-abstraction identified as an important driver in several regions,' the report says. Worldwide, 34% of groundwater observation stations reported below-normal to much-below-normal levels in 2025, up from 25% in 2024, while about 31% were above normal; levels are measured against the 2001–2020 reference period.

The WMO analysis describes groundwater trends as cumulative depletion and a multi-year drying pattern. Northern India also reported below-normal terrestrial water storage in 2025, in common with many major regions, and 'rivers across the globe in 2025 had one of the driest years in more than three decades', the agency said, calling it a continuation of the long-term decline in the Earth's freshwater storage and in glaciers.

'We are depleting that savings account,' said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo of the world's stored land water. Global terrestrial water storage has trended down since 2014–2016, a decade-long signal; for the fourth consecutive year every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass; and nearly two-thirds of monitored wells showed conditions outside the historical norm in 2025, with the balance shifting further toward deficit rather than recovery.

The report, now in its fifth year, gives comparable data across the water cycle and lets longer-term trends emerge — for Indian agriculture, which draws most of its irrigation from wells, the trend is the one that matters most.

Source: Down To Earth