Global fresh water scarcity and empirical studies on the bad quality of water in Europe made the Community aware of the need to protect this vital resource. Since water has no frontiers, the Member States decided to endeavour a common approach in its protection. It is the aim of this treatise to show the Community's policy and legislation in water protection, which has been evolving since its origins in the Seventies throughout the last decades. The most ambitious approach which has been undertaken by the Community in this field of law lately, is the Water Framework Directive. Its provisions and its implementation into national law by the Member States (Austria, France) are at the centre of this treatise. Common challenges and the way the Member States deal with them are presented. The common approach results fruitful which is important, since - in the end - a stringent transposition of the existing and future rules set by the Community on behalf of water protection will respond to the claim future generations have on fresh water.