Countries in North America by water stress

Countries in North America by water stress, World Bank, 2022

#	Country	% of available water	Region
1	Barbados	87.5%	Caribbean
2	Saint Kitts and Nevis	50.8%	Caribbean
3	Mexico	44.9%	Central America
4	Dominican Republic	39.6%	Caribbean
5	United States	28.2%	Northern America
6	Cuba	23.9%	Caribbean
7	Trinidad and Tobago	20.3%	Caribbean
8	Saint Lucia	14.3%	Caribbean
9	Haiti	13.4%	Caribbean
10	Jamaica	12.4%	Caribbean
11	El Salvador	12.1%	Central America
12	Dominica	10.0%	Caribbean
13	Antigua and Barbuda	8.5%	Caribbean
14	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	7.9%	Caribbean
15	Grenada	7.1%	Caribbean
16	Costa Rica	5.9%	Central America
17	Guatemala	5.7%	Central America
18	Honduras	4.6%	Central America
19	Canada	3.7%	Northern America
20	Nicaragua	2.2%	Central America
21	Belize	1.3%	Central America
22	Panama	0.9%	Central America

No World Bank figure for Bahamas.

Territories and other places

Not ranked: dependencies of the states above, places whose status is disputed. Highest first.

Place	% of available water	Status
Puerto Rico	19.5%	Territory of United States of America

Questions

Which country in North America has the most water stress?

Barbados has the most water stress in North America: 87.5% of its available fresh water (2022). Next come Saint Kitts and Nevis (50.8% of its available fresh water) and Mexico (44.9% of its available fresh water).

Which country in North America has the least water stress?

Panama, with 0.9% of its available fresh water (2022).

What is the typical water stress of a country in North America?

The median of the 22 countries in North America is 11.1% of its available fresh water: half are above it, half below. The median, not the average, because a few countries at the top would drag an average far above almost everyone.

Where do the figures come from?

Fresh water taken for farms, industry and homes, as a share of the fresh water available after nature’s own needs. Past 100%, a country draws down groundwater or desalinates. Source: World Bank, 2022. Only independent states are ranked; territories are listed separately. A country’s continent follows Natural Earth; the handful of island states it files under the open ocean are placed by their UN subregion.

Source: World Bank (CC BY 4.0). Figures more than 5 years older than the newest are left out rather than shown beside current ones. Countries sharing a value share a rank. All sources.