Freshwater resources are a global issue in both ecological terms and economic and political terms. Concerns about these resources relate to both their accessibility and quality in the face of increasing anthropogenic pressures generated by the increase in the human population and its activities.There are increasing differences in the ecological trajectories of continental aquatic ecosystems between northern and southern countries.Indeed, while the former are, for many of them, involved in a dynamic of restoration based in particular on the control of nutrient intakes (for example by banning phosphates from washing powders) and organic pollution (for example by improving the treatment of wastewater), many southern countries are in a reverse process of degradation of their aquatic ecosystems with multiple consequences on their functioning and on the uses that are made of them.