Book excerpt: Water Stress Management contains the invited lectures and selected oral and poster presentations of the 11th International Symposium on the Properties of Water (ISOPOW), which was held in Queretaro, Mexico 5-9 September 2010. The text provides a holistic description and discussion of state-of-the-art topics on the role of water in Biological, Chemical, Pharmaceutical and Food systems within a frame of an integrated approach and future trends on the subject. Different points-of-view about the state of water and phase transitions in a variety of substrates are presented. ISOPOW is a non-profit scientific organization whose activities aim at progressing the understanding of the properties of water in food and related biological systems and the exploitation of this understanding in improved raw materials, products and processes in the food, agro food or related industries. The first Symposium was organized in Glasgow, Scotland in 1974. Since then, ISOPOW meetings have promoted the exchange of knowledge between scientists involved in the study of food materials and scientists interested in water from a more basic point of view and the dialogue between academic and industrial scientists/technologists.