The protection of water against pollution from hazardous substances of industrial plants is normally implemented by a combination of technical and organisational safety measures within strategic hazard management. The demand for hazard prevention results from several motivations that can be allocated to the public as well as to the plant operators. But rarely is economic benefit the reason why preventive measures are seen as mandatory. This paper focuses on prevention activities to detect kinds of costs and benefits in water hazard management. Furthermore, the first basic approaches are shown for using economic perspectives in the fields of hazard prevention for a practical method of improving efficiency.