Although water is essential for health, food security, and poverty reduction, billions of people around the world still lack safe and sustainable water access—a problem more acute in the Global South. Attaining dependable estimates of water access is however difficult, particularly in urban settings of low-income regions. This paper provides a method to appraise water access in these environments and illustrates it through its application to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. The method is based on a novel combination of GIS-based clustering with 500 household surveys and 230 water samples to map multiple dimensions of water access. Physical availability of improved water sources, hauling time, water quality, water quantity, source reliability, and affordability, were appraised across all households, while we also conducted water quality analyses for all water points. Household data was subsequently anonymized and analyzed with k-means clustering. Water quantity, water quality, and source reliability were found to be the most important deficiencies in most cases, while our outcomes also highlight inequalities in water access across and within neighborhoods. This contributes to the growing body of literature suggesting that global water access figures are lower in practice than on paper. Our research provides policy-relevant insights to improve water supply networks and public health in low-income settings such as the one at hand. • We provide a clustering analysis of inequalities in water access. • This analysis focuses on cities of low-income countries. • K-means clustering points at important inequalities within short physical distances. • Water access is constrained by poor water quality and unreliability of sources. • Realization of the human right to water is lower in practice than on paper.
Meñe-Nsue-Mikue et al. (2026) studied this question.