In this communication an attempt has been made to review, in brief, work on solar distillation, its present status in the world today and its future perspective. The review also includes water sources, water demand, availability of potable water and purification methods including the state of art and historical background. The classification of distillation units has been done on the basis of literature survey till today. The basic heat and mass transfer relation responsible for developing, testing procedure for various designs of solar stills have also been discussed. The present status of solar distillation units in India, economics of single and double slope fibre re-inforced plastic on the basis of long-term performance and recommendations for future have been discussed in brief. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.