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Water management is one of the main problems facing humanity and follows a hierarchical perspective from the whole planet to water body. Spatio-temporal scales change at each level, as do driving forces, impacts, and the processes and responses involved. Recently, the European Union adopted the Water Framework Directive (WFD) to establish the basic principles of sustainable water policy in member states and one of the main concerns of the Directive is the need to consider the vulnerability of coastal aquatic ecosystems and to establish their ecological status. Water deficits and geographical water disequilibria in Spain have traditionally been faced with the development of hydraulic infrastructures, including long distance water transfers from water-rich basins to regions with scarcity, but the strong degree of decentralization existing actually in Spain and the number of administrations, authorities and institutions involved, hinders a common policy and administration of water resources. At water body level, coastal lagoons face conceptual and ecological difficulties in applying the WFD from their inclusion in a typology to the assignment of an ecological status as a consequence of inter and intra-lagoon variability in hydrology and biological assemblages and ecosystem homeostatic mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]