Water is being increasingly seen as one of the key resources in the context of climate change. Despite scholarship focusing on water issues can be traced back to long time ago, it has not been until recently that Integrated Assessment (IA) techniques have permeated in this field. Scenario development is a key component of IA, together with computer-aided Integrated Assessment Models, simulation gaming and qualitative Integrated Models. However, we argue that the use of the word scenario has been polysemous and to some extent confusing. In this contribution, we present an extended review of scenario analysis concerning water resources at multiple scales and we build an interpretative framework to analyze them. By doing so we propose some guidelines and areas where research is needed.