After the floods of 2025, can we keep 2026 above water?

In 2025, a number of countries across the world, including Southeast Asia, North America, and the Middle East, were ravaged by devastating floods.

We asked climate experts what is causing the devastation and what governments should be doing to prevent the situation from becoming even worse in the coming year.

Which areas in 2025 experienced the worst flood damage?

“Throughout 2025, a series of major floods occurred worldwide, making flooding the year’s foremost climate hazard”, Pawan Bhattarai, assistant professor at the civil engineering department of Nepal’s Kathmandu-based Tribhuvan University, told Al Jazeera.

Some of the biggest floods that occurred are briefly summarized here.

Gaza

Heavy downpours and freezing temperatures continue to ravage Gaza, where nearly 2 million people have been displaced during two years of Israeli bombardment that has destroyed much of the Strip.

In Gaza, many people are residing in tents amid the rubble of destroyed homes and are largely unprotected from the strong winds and rain.

On Saturday, a polar low-pressure weather system carried particularly heavy rain and strong winds to the Gaza Strip. This is the third system to hit the territory in the last few weeks, according to meteorologist Laith al-Allami, with a fourth one hitting on Monday, according to Anadolu Agency.

One of the previous two was Storm Byron, which brought heavy rainfall and strong winds to Gaza as well as parts of Israel and the wider eastern Mediterranean region earlier this month.

Israel was kept on top watch for the storm, with troops putting on power, protecting power lines, and halting military leave. But the UN said 55, 000 Palestinian households in Israel lacking basic services and government support were left exposed.

In Gaza, the storm claimed the lives of at least 14 Palestinians and injured several others. Among the victims was a newborn baby in al-Mawasi, who succumbed to freezing temperatures.

Morocco

Morocco launched a national emergency relief effort earlier this month to assist people who had experienced severe flooding as a result of torrential downpours, snowstorms, and freezing conditions.

Flash floods killed at least 37 people and damaged about 70 homes and shops in the town of Safi, 300km (186 miles) south of the capital, Rabat.

Prosecutors are looking into whether the disaster resulted from infrastructure problems like poor drainage.

Indonesia

At least 961 people were killed in Aceh, North Sumatra, and West Sumatra as a result of the floods that occurred in Indonesia in December. More than 20 villages across the ‍three provinces were completely swept away by the floods.

Many areas were left inaccessible as a result of the destruction of homes, rice fields, dams, and bridges.

Illegal logging – often linked to the global demand for palm oil – along with forest loss due to mining, plantations and fires, both exacerbated the disaster in Sumatra.

Around the same time, neighboring Malaysia reported flooding.

Thailand

At least 276 people have been killed in flooding in Thailand in December. According to the Thai Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation, the floods severely affected eight provinces in the central plains, four in the south, and two in the north.

Sri Lanka

In late November, floods and landslides killed at least 56 people as Cyclone Ditwah, a deadly tropical storm, swept across Sri Lanka.

The heavy downpour which accompanied the storm destroyed four houses and damaged more than 600. Additionally, it obstructed several roads and railroad lines by causing trees and mud to fall.

Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who took office in September 2024, inherited painful austerity measures imposed by his predecessor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, as part of a bailout loan package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), hampering rescue efforts.

“The storm poses a significant challenge to the government that is just beginning to address the social and economic concerns of the people,” Ahilan Kadirgamar, a senior lecturer at the department of sociology, University of Jaffna in Sri Lanka, told Al Jazeera in November.

Nepal

In October, severe floods and landslides hit parts of Nepal and India’s eastern Himalayan city of Darjeeling, killing at least 50 people.

Overall, there was only slightly less rain than in 2024, when the Kathmandu Valley experienced its heaviest downpour since 2002, so this year’s rainfall wasn’t record-breaking. In the capital Kathmandu, some districts received just more than 145 mm of rain this year, compared with about 240 mm in late September 2024.

However, “ultra-localized,” heavy rains caused significant damage.

The floods came one month after Nepal’s “Gen Z” protests in Kathmandu and other cities against corruption and nepotism. Following the protests, former Chief Justice Sushila Karki, 73, replaced him as interim prime minister and former military officer.

While experts praised Karki for her interim government’s prompt early weather warnings before the flooding, widespread damage to critical infrastructure during the protests hindered rebuilding and relief operations.

A significant change in policy and practice is urgently required to stop future disasters. This must prioritise comprehensive watershed management, focusing on stabilising slopes and managing water run-off, which has been a persistently neglected area in our current approach to disaster risk reduction”, Bhattarai, the engineering professor, told Al Jazeera at the time.

Mexico

At least 66 people were killed in Mexico as a result of floods in October. Tropical storms caused flooding in five states in the country: Veracruz, Puebla, Hidalgo, Queretaro and San Luis Potosi.

More than 16 000 homes were ruined in the nation.

Pakistan

Between June and August, several regions of Pakistan experienced flooding triggered by torrential rains. In the entire nation, over 700 people were killed.

Floods devastated the Buner district in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Additionally, high-intensity rains that fell over a short period of time caused significant flooding in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and the southern city of Karachi.

Rainfall continued in Pakistan and neighbouring countries until late August, and floods prompted the evacuation of 500, 000 people in the Punjab province.

More than 1, 400 people were killed when an earthquake of magnitude 6&nbsp hit Afghanistan near its border with Pakistan, according to the government. Efforts to rescue people affected by the earthquake were hindered because flash floods had affected the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, which borders Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

United States

As of last week, more than 40 million Americans had been placed under winter storm warnings or weather advisories. In California, where a so-called “atmospheric river” has accumulated rain, another 30 million people have been warned of flood or storm advisories.

An atmospheric river is a long, narrow band of air in the atmosphere that carries large amounts of water vapour.

Due to winter storm Devin, which caused blizzards in the Midwest and northeast and heavy snow forecasts in parts of both regions, thousands of flights in the US were canceled last week.

Earlier in the year, several US states, including Texas, West Virginia, New Mexico and New Jersey, were hit by flash floods – sudden and rapid flooding of low-lying areas – in July.

These floods were primarily brought on by short-term, heavy rainfall.

Flash floods in Texas killed more than 100 people in July 2025. The Guadalupe River flooded its banks within two hours, rising to a height of 9 meters (30 ft) above two-storey buildings.

Twenty-five girls and two counsellors were killed, and other people went missing when the floods hit the riverside Camp Mystic, a private Christian summer camp for girls.

According to a guide created by the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority, a Texas state agency dedicated to protecting the river basin’s water resources, the river has previously experienced significant floods in 1936, 1952, 1972, 1973, 1978, 1987, 1991, and 1997.

The 1987 deluge was particularly disastrous and also hit a summer camp, killing 10 teenagers at the Pot O ‘ Gold Christian Camp near Comfort, Texas, according to local media. However, the Guadalupe River exceeded 1987 levels, according to the National Weather Service (NWS) in July of this year.

So, were the 2025 floods worse than in previous years?

Yes, in some places.

In the US, for example, flooding does appear to have worsened steadily for the past few years. According to Nasir Gharaibeh, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Texas A&amp, M University, the period between January and September 2025 saw the highest number of flood and flash flood events and the highest number of associated human casualties in five years.

From January to September, there were 7, 074 floods in the US, which caused 242 deaths, according to the Storm Events Database, which is managed by the US National Weather Service (NWS) of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

There were 6, 551 floods in the same time last year, resulting in 151 deaths. In 2023, there were 5, 783 floods, which caused 93 deaths for the same period. 4 548 floods in 2022 left 102 people dead.

However, experts said that in other regions in the world, 2025 was not much worse than previous years.

South Asia and East Asia have experienced dramatic years, according to Professor Daanish Mustafa of King’s College, London.

“Nowhere did I hear that any flood flow record was broken. It’s just that flood plains were more urbanised, rivers more regulated, where the regulatory infrastructure failed, as in Sri Lanka and India,” said Mustafa.

Why were floods so severe in 2025?

Experts told us throughout the year that a number of factors contributed to the 2025 floods. “Flooding is a complex hazard. Gharaibeh argued that there are interactions between a number of factors, including weather, infrastructure, land cover, topography, and other factors.

Climate change is a major factor in causing weather events, researchers say. In 2025, “the specific triggers varied from city to city, yet one single, universal force multiplied them all: climate change, which supercharges rainfall extremes,” said Bhattarai.

Climate change is causing monsoon rains to intensify, for example, resulting in more frequent extreme precipitation events. This is because more water is stored in the atmosphere, making for longer downpours when the weather is in the high 70s.

In northern Pakistan, these higher temperatures are also accelerating glacial melting, which increases the likelihood of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs).

Additionally, according to Abdullah Ansari, a research professor at Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat, Oman, “research has shown that earthquake-induced vulnerabilities can increase by triggering landslides, causing damage to access routes, and causing disruption to communication lines,”

“The year was further distinguished by unusual patterns, including late-season monsoon floods, rare cyclonic activity, and extreme rainfall in regions not traditionally prone to flooding”, Bhattarai said.

However, the full picture is not always accurate.

“This global driver met a local vulnerability: Urban landscapes fundamentally unequipped for the new reality. The result was a rise in flash floods, which resulted in severe downpours that turned into city-wide disasters, according to Bhattarai.

“While climate change plays a critical role in intensifying flooding events in Pakistan, other factors such as urbanisation, deforestation, inadequate infrastructure, and poor river management also contribute significantly”, Ayyoob Sharifi, a professor and urban scientist at Hiroshima University in Japan, told Al Jazeera in August.

Additionally, flooding can be worsened by inadequate drainage systems and early warning systems.

A rise in the number of flash floods has also caused greater damage.

Gharaibeh told Al Jazeera, “We are seeing a higher number of flood-related casualties in the US, in part due to an increase in flash flooding brought on by rainfall,”

“Flash floods often occur with little warning, and the flood water flows with high velocities and destructive force, making them among the most dangerous natural hazards”, he added, explaining that the level of danger is measured by the ratio of deaths to people affected.

Overall, Bhattarai described the devastating flooding of 2025 as a “comedy of intense meteorological events and long-term human decisions.”

“On the weather side, the primary drivers have been cloudbursts and stalled rain systems. Due to record daily rainfall totals that overwhelm drainage systems in a matter of hours, these phenomena produce short-duration, high-intensity rainfall.

But human development has dramatically amplified the damage caused by floods, he said.

Nature’s safety buffers have been eliminated due to decades of river encroachment and floodplain conversions into urban land. Rivers, now constricted and unable to spread out, surge with greater force and speed into populated areas that were once natural absorption zones.

We have basically built cities in the water’s path before removing all of its escape routes, causing disastrous floods due to heavy rain.

How can we improve flood responses in future?

According to experts, governments will have to adapt to the new weather patterns, which are causing more frequent and intense rainfall and flooding, as well as alter their strategy to withstand floods.

Mustafa said:” Societies are continuing on their path of trying to fight floods, regulate rivers and build obstructive infrastructure in flood plains. All of these efforts have failed and will continue to fail. But I fear the societies will continue apace.

Don’t try to fight floods; learn to live through them. Don’t try to control and restrict river flows, give rivers room to flow”, he advised.

High-frequency, low-intensity events can and have been engineered away by society. But in the process, they’ve made low-frequency, high-intensity events much worse. And this is especially devastating in the current climate change, where all of your historical patterns, which constitute the foundation of infrastructural design, are pointless.

Mustafa explained that infrastructure such as dams, levees and barrages are built to handle floods of a certain size and frequency.

He explained that these are designed for events lasting 100, 500, or 1000 years, i.e., events with a one-percent, 0.5%, or 0.1 percent, respectively, chance of recurrence in any given year. He added that most infrastructure is designed for 100-year events.

To construct this infrastructure, engineers make use of historical data from natural disasters.

“Assumption is that historical trends will continue into the future. That assumption is untrue because of climate change, according to Mustafa.

Bhattarai said the 2025 floods underscored the need for faster, community-focused responses with clear local warnings, stronger coordination, urban-specific plans, protection of vulnerable groups and safer rebuilding that reduces future flood risks.

According to Gharaibeh, appropriate solutions will depend on where the floods are occurring in the world.

“Some parts of the world should start investing in their flood control infrastructure, including roadway systems, where roads are used as ‘ drainage channels’. Better warning systems should be developed in other parts of the world.

Gharaibeh explained that since funding is usually limited, controlling floods requires prioritisation of investment.

Because of their long history of flooding issues, nations like the United States and Japan, for instance, have established robust flood control infrastructures and continue to do so.

Even so, recent flash flood events, such as the flood that affected Texas in 2025, indicate that countries like the US should invest more in building better warning systems.

Source: Aljazeera