Between 2000 and 2022 the world's water stress went from
17.47% to 17.77% — a rise of
0.3 points in twenty-two years.
The global figure is almost still. Underneath it, the regions have pulled apart.
Water stress is how much freshwater a place withdraws each year against how much it has,
after the flow rivers need to stay alive is set aside. Every figure in these ten pages comes from FAO,
the World Bank or the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme, and every page names its source.
Water stress UN SDG indicator SDG 6.4.2, series ER_H2O_STRESS, compiled by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). 2000–2022, retrieved 2026-09-20 from the UN SDG API.
Read as Each line is a UN SDG region. The heavy line is the world.
Water Atlas · Cover01 / 10
02What is being measured
A single ratio, and five thresholds
SDG 6.4.2 divides what a country withdraws by what it has available. Below 25% there is no stress. Above 100% a country is spending water it cannot replace — from fossil groundwater, desalination, or another country's river.
180 countries
report SDG 6.4.2 for at least one year since 2000
23 above 75%
high or critical stress in their latest year
17 above 100%
withdrawing more than is renewed
Water stress UN SDG indicator SDG 6.4.2, series ER_H2O_STRESS, compiled by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). 2000–2022, retrieved 2026-09-20 from the UN SDG API.
The dots pile up at the left. Most countries are not short of water in this sense: of the
180 that report the indicator, most sit below the 25% line. The story is in the tail,
where 23 countries are above 75% and 17 are above 100%.
A ratio above 100% is not an error. Kuwait withdraws 3,850% of its renewable
freshwater, almost all of it either desalinated seawater or groundwater that does not come back.
Water Atlas · The measure02 / 10
03The world in its latest reported year
Stress is regional, not global
Of 174 areas on this map, 145 report the indicator. The band that runs from North Africa through the Gulf into Central and South Asia is where the pressure concentrates.
Run the years and the map barely moves in most of the world. What changes is concentrated:
the Gulf deepens, Central Asia holds, and a band across the Sahel and East Africa shifts up a class as
withdrawal grows against a fixed resource. Pale areas do not report the indicator — 29 of the areas
drawn here — and are left uncoloured rather than filled with an estimate.
Water stress UN SDG indicator SDG 6.4.2, series ER_H2O_STRESS, compiled by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). 2000–2022, retrieved 2026-09-20 from the UN SDG API.
Projection Equal Earth (Savric, Patterson and Jenny, 2018), equal-area: a country's area on the page is proportional to its area on the ground.
Boundaries Natural Earth 110m via world-atlas 2.0.2 · public domain
Year2022Deeper red is a rise since 2000, blue a fall.
Water Atlas · The world in 202203 / 10
04Where the water is
Scarcity is a number per person
Water stress measures pressure on the resource. This measures the resource itself: renewable internal freshwater divided by population. The thresholds are Falkenmark's.
75 countries
below 1,700 m³ a person, of 183 with data
56 below 1,000
the scarcity threshold
28 below 500
absolute scarcity
The scale is logarithmic because it has to be: the distance from Kuwait to Iceland is five
orders of magnitude. Egypt's figure is low because the Nile arrives from outside it — the water it uses is
real, but it is not internal.
Resources Renewable internal freshwater resources per capita (cubic meters) · World Development Indicators
Thresholds Falkenmark, Lundqvist and Widstrand (1989), as used by FAO and UN-Water.
Water Atlas · Where the water is04 / 10
05Who withdraws it
Four fifths of it grows food
Across the 179 countries that report all three sectors, agriculture takes 71.0% of freshwater withdrawal, industry 15.7% and households and services 13.3%. The mix is what separates one water crisis from another.
Show
India and China withdraw more freshwater than the next eight countries on this list together, and both take
most of it for irrigation. The United States is the outlier in the other direction: industry, mostly thermal
power cooling, takes about as much as its farms.
Switch to shares and the bars square off. The point of the second view is that a country's
water problem is a different problem depending on which sector holds the tap.
3,855 km³ a year
total withdrawal across 179 reporting countries
71.0 % agriculture
withdrawal-weighted across those countries
Withdrawal Annual freshwater withdrawals, total (billion cubic meters) · World Development Indicators
Sector shares ER.H2O.FWAG.ZS, ER.H2O.FWIN.ZS, ER.H2O.FWDM.ZS · World Development Indicators
Computed Sector totals are withdrawal-weighted sums of country values covering 100.0% of reported withdrawal. FAO does not publish this aggregate; it is computed here.
Water Atlas · Who withdraws it05 / 10
06Stress against access
Having water and getting water are different problems
If stress caused thirst, this chart would slope. It does not. The countries where the most people lack safely managed drinking water are mostly not the most stressed ones.
The Gulf states sit at the far right — extreme stress — and near the top, because desalination and money
deliver water to almost everyone. Much of Sub-Saharan Africa sits at the left, with plenty of water by this
measure, and near the bottom, because delivering it is an infrastructure problem, not a hydrological one.
Two axes, two sources, 126 countries with both. Circle area is population, so the eye weights
India and Nigeria correctly rather than treating every country as one dot.
Water stress UN SDG indicator SDG 6.4.2, series ER_H2O_STRESS, compiled by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). 2000–2022, retrieved 2026-09-20 from the UN SDG API.
Drinking water People using safely managed drinking water services (% of population) · World Development Indicators
Population Population, total · World Development Indicators
Water Atlas · Stress and access06 / 10
07The deficit, in people
1.97 billion people
Percentages hide size. Converting each country's coverage into the number of people it leaves out puts the problem where it actually is.
India alone accounts for about 342 million
of them. Mexico appears on this list at 43% coverage — a reminder that the deficit is
not confined to the poorest countries.
This is a computed figure, not a published one: each country's population multiplied by the share
without safely managed service, then summed. It counts only the 150 countries that report the
indicator, together 72.6% of world population, so the real total is higher.
Drinking water People using safely managed drinking water services (% of population) · World Development Indicators · indicator SH.H2O.SMDW.ZS
Definition Safely managed: an improved source on the premises, available when needed, free from contamination.
Computed Population × (100 − coverage), summed. Stated here because no agency publishes this exact number.
Water Atlas · The deficit07 / 10
08The fastest change
Sub-Saharan Africa more than doubled
Regional stress went from 4.26% in 2000 to 10.25% in 2022. It is still the least stressed large region in the world, and it is the one changing quickest.
4.3 → 10.2 %
Sub-Saharan Africa, 2000 to 2022
2.4× rise
the largest proportional rise of any SDG region
Nothing here is a water shortage yet. These twelve curves show demand arriving: irrigation,
cities and industry drawing on a resource that is not growing.
Water stress UN SDG indicator SDG 6.4.2, series ER_H2O_STRESS, compiled by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). 2000–2022, retrieved 2026-09-20 from the UN SDG API.
Scales Each panel is scaled to its own maximum, printed at the end of its line. The panels are not comparable to each other by height.
Water Atlas · The fastest change08 / 10
09Methods and sources
Every number, and where it came from
Eight series from two APIs, retrieved 2026-09-20. Nothing is estimated, interpolated or filled in.
Series
Code
Compiled by
Years
Values
Level of water stress: freshwater withdrawal as a proportion of available freshwater resources
ER.H2O.FWST.ZS
AQUASTAT - FAO's Global Information System on Water and Agriculture, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
1990–2022
5,266
Renewable internal freshwater resources per capita (cubic meters)
ER.H2O.INTR.PC
AQUASTAT - FAO's Global Information System on Water and Agriculture, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
1990–2022
7,472
Annual freshwater withdrawals, total (billion cubic meters)
ER.H2O.FWTL.K3
AQUASTAT - FAO's Global Information System on Water and Agriculture, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
1990–2022
5,811
Annual freshwater withdrawals, agriculture (% of total freshwater withdrawal)
ER.H2O.FWAG.ZS
AQUASTAT - FAO's Global Information System on Water and Agriculture, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
1990–2022
5,676
Annual freshwater withdrawals, industry (% of total freshwater withdrawal)
ER.H2O.FWIN.ZS
AQUASTAT - FAO's Global Information System on Water and Agriculture, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
1990–2022
5,578
Annual freshwater withdrawals, domestic (% of total freshwater withdrawal)
ER.H2O.FWDM.ZS
AQUASTAT - FAO's Global Information System on Water and Agriculture, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
1990–2022
5,647
People using safely managed drinking water services (% of population)
SH.H2O.SMDW.ZS
WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene, World Health Organization (WHO)
2000–2024
4,411
Population, total
SP.POP.TOTL
World Population Prospects, United Nations (UN)
1990–2024
9,240
Level of water stress (used throughout)
ER_H2O_STRESS
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), via the UN SDG API
2000–2022
217 areas
Retrieved World Bank Indicators API and UN SDG API, 2026-09-20. Raw responses are kept in source/data/raw/.
Licences World Bank indicators CC BY 4.0 · FAO AQUASTAT terms · Natural Earth boundaries, public domain.
Where two sources disagree
The World Bank publishes FAO's water stress indicator as well. Across the 178 countries in
both, the median difference is 0.004 points — the same series. One country differs materially: the United
Arab Emirates, 1,668.7% in FAO's SDG database against 1,509.9% in the World Bank's copy for the same year.
The atlas uses FAO's own series throughout, because FAO is the custodian agency and publishes the
aggregates pages 01 and 08 depend on.
What is missing
Coverage is uneven and is stated on each page: 29 mapped areas do not report water
stress, 150 countries report safely managed drinking water, and sector splits exist for
179 countries. Two figures are computed rather than published — the sector totals on page 05
and the people without safe water on page 07 — and both say so where they appear.
Water Atlas · Methods and sources09 / 10
10What the atlas found
Seven things the data says
Each of these is a figure from the pages before it, not an interpretation added afterwards.
01The world average has not moved. It rose 0.3 points in twenty-two years.17.77%
02Northern Africa and Western Asia now withdraws more than three quarters of what it has.77.9%
03Sub-Saharan Africa's stress more than doubled — from the lowest base of any region.4.3→10.2
04Europe and Northern America is the one region where stress fell.14.2→11.3
05Agriculture takes four fifths of every litre withdrawn.71.0%
06Stress does not predict access. The two maps do not line up.126 countries
07People still without safely managed drinking water, in reporting countries alone.1.97 bn
On this atlas
Water Atlas is self-initiated concept work by Studio Helper. It uses only published data from FAO,
the World Bank and the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme, and it is not endorsed by any of them. No figure in
these ten pages was invented, rounded up for effect, or carried over from a previous version of a dataset.
The charts are computed in Python and drawn as SVG, so the page, the PDF and the printed sheet
are the same marks. The build is reproducible: four scripts, listed in the README.
Studio Helper Founder, Sulman Ahmad Cheema studio-helpers.com @studio__helpers
Water stress UN SDG indicator SDG 6.4.2, series ER_H2O_STRESS, compiled by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). 2000–2022, retrieved 2026-09-20 from the UN SDG API.
Everything else World Bank Indicators API: AQUASTAT withdrawal and resource series, WHO/UNICEF JMP drinking water, UN population.