Purpose The purpose of the article is to understand how the literature has been addressing the United Nations' Sixth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) to obtain an overview of the current scenario and future perspectives. Design/methodology/approach For that, a bibliometric analysis will be conducted with documents published between 2015 and 2021 and present in the Web of Science database. Initially, 328 documents were identified, and after careful reading of titles and abstracts, 239 documents were analysed. The documents were analysed using tools available on the Web of Science database and the software Bibliometrix. Findings Amongst the results generated, it should be highlighted the identification of the motor themes "sustainable development" + "developing countries" and "water security", presenting a significant relevance to the field and a high development level. In addition, "human rights" was verified as an emerging theme in the context of SDG 6 debates. Originality/value The information provided here offers good documentation of the extent to which SDG 6 is documented in the literature and can be helpful for researchers interested in the topic.