The problem of water pollution, exacerbated by the drought of 1990, is discussed in relation to countries such as France, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom, and West Germany, with regard to nitrates. Phosphate pollution, which regulations will allow to be gradually controlled starting in 1991, industrial pollution revealed by the 1987 investigative report of the Directorate of Water, Prevention, and Risks, as well as the inadequacy of sanitation in France noted in recent reports by the State Secretariat for the Environment, illustrates the scale of the problem and the efforts required to combat it.