For more than 20 years, the river contracts develop successfully in Walloon Region of Belgium. To date, 89 % of the territory is covered by these contracts. Inspired by the French model, the Walloon approach privileges the participative approach within users' community which makes a commitment on the elaboration and the implementation of an action plan of restoration of the water resources and the waterways.The success of the river contracts is strengthened by a willingness of integration of all the components of the management of the water, among these, the spatial size. In reference to a territory of management as the sub-catchment basin, the river contracts transcend the administrative limits to recreate water territories. They will be territories of solidarity and participation, territories of knowledge where the local expertise of the residents and the users of the water is recognized and comes to complete the scientific knowledge, territories of preventive actions through the promotion of best practice of ground occupation and finally territories of integration by the consideration of all the functions of the river of which the landscaped function. This territorial reference constitutes one of the main levers of this process of integrated and participative management of the water at a local level.Today, the river contract makes its contribution to the implementation of the water framework directive, while positioning as a tool of territorialization in the management of the water at a local level.