According to last year's figures, about 844 million people were struggling to meet the most basic need of life, water, which was 200 million more than the previous count. More than 60 per cent of humanity lived in water-stressed areas, where water supply is not enough to meet demand.
Data linking household wealth and access to water indicated that there were huge disparities between rich and poor countries in having easy and effective access to water.
This could also be seen in last year's sanitation data: some 289,000 children under the age of five die each year from diarrhoeal diseases, which is linked to contaminated water and poor hygiene conditions.
I have prepared an infographic with information from WaterAid, "The Water Deficit: State of the World's Water 2018", in which I briefly summarize the figures of world water stress.
