TWF Water Explorer

Baseline water stress

1979 to 2019

River plastic

Modelled emission into the ocean, metric tons per year, 2015

Under 300
300 to 1,000
1,000 to 3,000
3,000 and over

River plastic

Modelled emission into the ocean, metric tons per year, 2015

Under 300
300 to 1,000
1,000 to 3,000
3,000 and over

TWF Water Explorer

The data shown comes from the sources below, each under its own licence or terms.

Sources

Baseline water stress

Water risk: WRI Aqueduct 4.0, adapted, CC BY 4.0

Water stress and depletion

Baseline water stress measures the ratio of total water demand to available renewable surface and groundwater supplies.

Baseline water depletion measures the ratio of total water consumption to available blue water.

Groundwater table decline measures the average decline of the groundwater table as the average change for the period of study (1990 to 2014).

Risks

Drought risk measures where droughts are likely to occur, the population and assets exposed, and the vulnerability of the population and assets to adverse effects.

Riverine flood risk measures the percentage of population expected to be affected by riverine flooding in an average year, accounting for existing flood-protection standards.

Coastal flood risk measures the percentage of the population expected to be affected by coastal flooding in an average year, accounting for existing flood protection standards.

Water services

Untreated connected wastewater measures the percentage of domestic wastewater that is connected through a sewerage system and not treated to at least a primary treatment level.

Unimproved/no drinking water reflects the percentage of the population collecting drinking water from an unprotected dug well or spring, or directly from a river, dam, lake, pond, stream, canal, or irrigation canal (WHO and UNICEF 2017).

Unimproved/no sanitation reflects the percentage of the population using pit latrines without a slab or platform, hanging/bucket latrines, or directly disposing human waste in fields, forests, bushes, open bodies of water, beaches, other open spaces, or with solid waste (WHO and UNICEF 2017).

Rivers

The world's larger rivers, and the lines through lakes that join them, each with its water running towards the sea. The short rivers that lead to a coast's plastic-carrying mouths are drawn too.

Where rivers carry floating plastic into the ocean: the 1,659 river mouths that together carry 80% of it, each marked by its modelled emission for 2015.

A river basin is the land whose water drains through one river and its tributaries to a single mouth. The lines are the divides between the 141 basins of 100,000 km² or more, where the water parts.

Groundwater and borders

An aquifer is rock or sediment that holds water underground. A shared aquifer lies across a border, so the countries over it draw on the same water.

The borders between countries on land, drawn where each country actually governs on the ground rather than where the law would put them.

Baseline water stress measures the ratio of total water demand to available renewable surface and groundwater supplies.

By sub-basin, 1979 to 2019. Low (<10%); Low-medium (10-20%); Medium-high (20-40%); High (40-80%); Extremely high (>80%).

Water Stress Worldwide

Water stress, the ratio of water demand to renewable supply, measures the competition over local water resources.

25 countries, housing one-quarter of the global population, face extremely high water stress each year, regularly using up almost their entire available water supply.
At least 50% of the world's population, around 4 billion people, live under highly water-stressed conditions for at least one month of the year.
The most water-stressed regions are the Middle East and North Africa, where 83% of the population is exposed to extremely high water stress, and South Asia, where 74% is exposed.

Land and Countries by Category

Category	Land	Countries
Low (<10%)	49.7%	59
Low-medium (10-20%)	5.2%	35
Medium-high (20-40%)	5.3%	23
High (40-80%)	3.7%	22
Extremely high (>80%)	8.5%	25
Arid and low water use	17.3%
No data	10.3%	25

Shares of the 148,260,601 km² of land Aqueduct maps, and counts of the 189 countries it ranks.

25 Countries at Extremely High Water Stress

Bahrain, Cyprus, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman and Qatar, tied at the highest score; then United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Botswana, Iran, Jordan, Chile, San Marino, Belgium, Greece, Tunisia, Namibia, South Africa, Iraq, India and Syria.

Sources

The data shown comes from the sources below, each under its own licence or terms.

Source: WRI Aqueduct, accessed on 3 October 2026. Baseline indicators, projections of water stress and country rankings from Aqueduct 4.0 (2023), adapted as maps of categories and a table of countries; untreated connected wastewater is drawn by country on Natural Earth's borders. CC BY 4.0.

The World Bank: World Development Indicators: GDP (current US$) from national statistical organisations, central banks, OECD national accounts and World Bank staff estimates; Population, total, from the UN Population Division's World Population Prospects, national statistical offices, Eurostat and the UN Statistics Division. Accessed on 3 October 2026. CC BY 4.0.

River plastic: Meijer, van Emmerik, van der Ent, Schmidt and Lebreton (2021), modelled emissions into the ocean for 2015, figshare, doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.14515590. Adapted: the river mouths that carry 80% of the total. CC BY 4.0.

River basins: HydroBASINS sub-basins (Lehner and Grill 2013) in the spatial format provided by BasinATLAS, HydroATLAS version 1.0 (Linke et al. 2019), doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.9890531. Adapted: the river basins of 100,000 km² or more, drawn as their divides and simplified. CC BY 4.0.

Shared aquifers: IGRAC and UNESCO-IHP (2025) Transboundary Aquifers of the World Map. Edition 2025. Delft, Netherlands. doi:10.58154/yb8g-cp97. Adapted: outlines simplified, parts and holes under 100 km² left out. CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

Made with Natural Earth.

Rivers behind the river mouths, and the mouths' names: © OpenStreetMap contributors. Adapted: traced upstream from each mouth, simplified and joined to the mouths; the adapted data is available under the Open Database Licence 1.0.

WRI, 2023; World Bank, 2026; Natural Earth, 2021 and 2022; OpenStreetMap contributors, 2026; Meijer et al., 2021; Linke et al., 2019; Lehner and Grill, 2013; IGRAC and UNESCO-IHP, 2025: 25 Countries, Housing One-Quarter of the Population, Face Extremely High Water Stress; Aqueduct 4.0 Current and Future Country Rankings; Aqueduct 4.0: Updated Decision-Relevant Global Water Risk Indicators; World Development Indicators; Admin 0 Countries, 1:50m, version 5.1.1; Rivers and Lake Centerlines, 1:10m, version 5.0.0; OpenStreetMap, under the Open Database Licence 1.0; Supplementary data for “More than 1000 rivers account for 80% of global riverine plastic emissions into the ocean”; More than 1000 rivers account for 80% of global riverine plastic emissions into the ocean; HydroATLAS version 1.0: BasinATLAS; Global hydro-environmental sub-basin and river reach characteristics at high spatial resolution; Global river hydrography and network routing: baseline data and new approaches to study the world's large river systems; Transboundary Aquifers of the World Map, edition 2025; Admin 0 Boundary Lines, land, 1:50m, version 5.1.0.

Categories shown

Low
Low-medium
Medium-high
High
Extremely high

Arid and low water use
No data