Recent water policy at national and international level have been addressed toward environmental objectives aimed to protect water resources and develop their sustainable management. Water framework Directives, considering all surface waters and their specific ecosystems and interrelationships among the different components, were just approved in Italy in 1999 and in the European Union in 2000. A brief analysis on the chemical, physical and biological monitoring and ecotoxicological methods required is shown in this paper. The need of developing a series of adequate biological and ecotoxicological tests is underlined.