Cars sit stuck in the flooded streets in the Red Hook neighborhood on Sept 29, 2023 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (PHOTO / AFP)

GENEVA — The World Meteorological Organization said on Thursday that the hydrological cycle was increasingly out of balance due to climate change and made a call for a fundamental policy shift towards better monitoring.

"We are seeing much heavier precipitation episodes and flooding. And at the opposite extreme, more evaporation, dry soils and more intense droughts," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas in a statement as the UN agency released its State of Global Water Resources report for 2022.

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On the other extreme, it cited floods in Pakistan that killed more than 1,700 people last year.

"...Far too little is known about the true state of the world's freshwater resources. We cannot manage what we do not measure," the WMO said in a statement.