This article presents a brief reflection on the history of the field of water resources in Brazil. The evolution of the legal protection of water resources shows that the effect of the Water Code, the legal protection of waters was limited to neighborhood disputes and power generation, without concern for its preservation. However, the rapid industrialization process has required a greater intake of water resources and to promote the rational use and ensure multiple uses, it required a more effective legal protection and consistent with the new panorama, paper absorbed by the Constitution of the Republic of 1988. Subsequently, the Water Law in 1997, which established the National Water Resources Policy, implemented the constitutional principles, highlighting water as a public good with economic value, whose use planning and management must occur in a sustainable manner. When you assign an economic value to water, asks if the rational has been actually achieved, or through a discourse of scarcity, was being privatized, or even if the instruments of grant and collection of use ensure the sustainable use water resources. It is noted that water is a fundamental right of all and that is what your domain should be oriented. However, there is a tortuous path to tread to ban the private dominion of water resources and promote ethical consumption of water, essential for the implementation of a sustainable water management.