Water is life! It is a crucial resource for humanity and the rest of the living world. Everyone needs it –and not just for drinking. With the development of society, the water resources are polluted and wasted, so that people have to deal with this issue. European Union has done much work than other states and regions on this matter, such as European Union has formulated many water policies and enacted a lot of water legislations. Meanwhile, the future of EU water law which is barely to be penetrated, so it is certainly worth to review its instruments and talk about its evolution and its unusual elements, because we have to acknowledge these elements are still going on. Therefore, it is necessary to review the development of EU water law. In this thesis, the author researches the development of European Union water law from unusual perspectives, such as European Union’s economic instruments to protect water, the interface between sea and freshwater, and introduces European Union’s different approaches in water governance, such as IWRM, ICZM and CIS. Key words: water protection; WFD2000; sustainable water governance; IWRM; ICZM; EU water institution.