This paper outlines the central role of risk management in the regulatory toolkit administering Indian environmental law. In particular, it examines the operationalization of risk manage ment in the functioning of Water Act through the management of pollution standards, especially the extent to which standards management has informed adjudication by the higher judiciary and the National Green Tribunal. This examination of adjudi cation the cases is typed into cases that strictly deal with stand ards management, cases that deal with procedural objections to regulatory interventions to manage standards and public interest litigation cases. Though the overall number of cases are small, strict standards management cases constitute about a third of the overall number of cases arising out of the stand ards management provisions of the statute. Drawing on this dis tribution of cases the paper comments on the nature and limits of standards management as the framework of managing risk in the Water Act. Accordingly, this paper is also an introduc tory comment on the kind of enquiry that will make salient the framework of risk management that organizes the regulatory framework of the Water Act in particular and Indian environ ment law in general.