Spatial planning policies have a direct impact on water resources and aquatic ecosystems. That is why it is required, since the 21 April 2004 French Act, that local development plans (schémas de cohérence territoriale – SCoT), which determine global orientations on local space organization, be compatible with water management plans (schémas d’aménagement et de gestion des eaux – SAGE), which set general objectives on the uses, promotion and quantitative and qualitative protection of water resources at a river basin scale. But what can be observed in practice ? Drawing on three contrasted territorial cases (Provençal Arc, Ain lower valley and Thau basin), we noticed that the degree of connection between SAGE and SCoT is extremely variable from one case to another and we tried to explain these differences. In the end, it seems that the evolution of legislation does not guarantee in itself that water issues would be more taken into account in spatial planning policies. This consideration of water issues over all depends on the way in which local general interest is defined according to agreements formalized and spread by dominant political actors in the concerned territories.