Asia is at the centre of the world’s deepening water crisis. Across the region, communities are facing the triple challenge of too much, too little and too polluted water, driven by human-induced climate change and industrial activities. The region is warming at twice the global average, disrupting seasonal water cycles and causing widespread harm to lives and livelihoods.
In the first of this three-part series, we highlight the impacts of too much water — from floods, storms and rising seas — as some of the most acutely felt consequences of the climate crisis for millions across Asia.
Heavy Rains and Flash Flooding
Water-related events have dominated the list of disasters over the past 50 years, accounting for 70% of all deaths from natural disasters. In 2023, Asia experienced 79 major water-related disasters, with over 80% linked to floods and storms, resulting in over 2,000 deaths and affecting 9 million people directly. Climate change is making cyclones and extreme rainfall events more intense and damaging. It disrupts the Asian monsoon, leading to extreme flooding and coastal storm surges.
Rising sea levels are also threatening coastal communities, accelerating saltwater intrusion into freshwater aquifers and farmlands. In Bangladesh alone, more than 20 million people live in areas at high risk of saltwater intrusion, reducing crop productivity and the availability of drinking water. Meanwhile, the Hindu Kush Himalaya region is losing ice at an alarming rate. Accelerated glacial melt is causing deadly floods and landslides, threatening thousands of communities, agriculture, infrastructure, and energy systems.
Communities Suffering on The Front Lines
The impacts of Asia’s shifting water cycle are extensive and deeply interconnected. Floods and storms damage and destroy homes and vital infrastructure, while floodwaters increase the risk of diseases such as cholera and dengue. These events inflict severe harm on affected communities, often necessitating urgent humanitarian assistance, with food, water and medical supplies disrupted, livelihoods impacted and people displaced.
Widespread Floods in Pakistan
These impacts remain long after the flood waters ease. The 2022 monsoon season in Pakistan was the worst on record, causing widespread flooding that affected over 33 million people, killing over 1,700 and displacing up to 8 million. Exceptional monsoon rainfall inundated millions of hectares and caused economic losses exceeding USD 30 billion.
Three years on and still recovering from the catastrophic floods, Pakistan is now reeling from further intense downpours and flooding, impacting millions of people once again, losing livestock, harvests, homes and livelihoods. Attribution analyses concluded that human-driven warming made the extreme rainfall in both 2022 and 2025 substantially more likely and more intense. Experts warn that these intense rainfall events will continue to worsen in the coming decades. No longer irregular shocks, they are the structural outcome of a warmer, disrupted and more dangerous climate.
Flood Warnings and Adaptation Investment
For water-related disasters and extreme events, robust early-warning systems are needed to build resilience and safeguard lives and livelihoods amid typhoon, flood and landslide risks. There is also a pressing need for infrastructure that can withstand future conditions of climate change. At the same time, restoring natural systems lost or damaged by rapid urban development, such as wetlands and river floodplains that help absorb and slow floodwaters, will be essential to mitigate the impact of heavy rainfall and storm surges.
Resilience building and adaptation can only go so far in limiting the damage of climate change. We are heading towards a global temperature increase of 2°C, which would be catastrophic for sea-level rise, cyclones, flooding and extreme rainfall, bringing impacts that far exceed many nations and regions’ ability to adapt and making some areas uninhabitable. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions across all industries and economies is fundamental to ensuring the worst impacts of climate change are never felt.
Evelyn Smail
Writer, United Kingdom
Evelyn is a freelance writer and journalist specialising in climate science and policy, the just energy transition and the human impacts of climate change. She writes for independent publications, NGOs and environmental organisations. Evelyn has a background in sustainable development, climate justice and human rights.
Evelyn is a freelance writer and journalist specialising in climate science and policy, the just energy transition and the human impacts of climate change. She writes for independent publications, NGOs and environmental organisations. Evelyn has a background in sustainable development, climate justice and human rights.
