From a governmental point of view, discussions involving preservation areas in regions close to watercourses began by Emperor Dom Pedro II in the Tijuca Forest in Rio de Janeiro city, created in 1861, aimed at reversing results from deforestation and coffee plantations in Tijuca s Massif (CARVALHO, 2007). This fact supports that even before the creation of specific legislation focused on the environmental agenda, there was already an understanding by Brazilian and Portuguese managers about the role of native vegetation in maintaining water resources, especially at their origin - the springs or so called eyes of water . After the turn of the century, another related legislative fact was promulgated, Decree No. 4,421 of December 28, 1921 (BRAZIL, Decree No. 4,421), which did not specifically mention Riparian Areas Protection Regulation (RAPR), but wrote on protected areas in general, as a guarantee of balance, purity and abundance of water resources. Futher ahead, in 1934, the next historical milestone in which the Brazilian government presided over by President Getúlio Vargas drafted the first Forest Code (IPEA, 2016). The main objective of this document was limited to the management, restriction and punishment of interventions on water bodies, and in 1965 this code was edited in detail through Law 4,771/65 (BRASIL, 1965), which defined the surroundings of rivers and their springs as permanent preservation areas. In June 2000, the National System of Conservation Units was created through Law No. 9,985, where a complement to the objectives linked to the preservation of water courses was discussed, and at that moment the legislation began to establish more clearly rights and duties to be followed by municipalities and states and, along with this, protection tools, guidelines for the use of different ecosystems, rules for controlling activities and criteria for determining different categories of Conservation Units (BRAZIL, 2000). 9 Further on, in the State of Rio de Janeiro, environmental legislation gained another highlight in its timeline, this time in 2010, where State Decree 42.356 was promulgated (RIO DE JANEIRO, 2010), defining RAPR parameters for areas bordering rivers, lakes and lagoons due to the existence of a consolidated urban area. This decree is seen with spotlight and close attention by this dissertation.