ABSTRACT: Recent changes to the water and geological law in Slovakia have directed attention of hydrogeologists on the reassessment of usable groundwater amounts at exploited sources, to achieve greater accuracy while meeting ecological criteria. Presented analysis of selected aspects of determination of spring water usable amounts shows, that slight modification of the currently dominantly practised procedure can achieve its higher accuracy, reduce the likelihood of a negative ecological impact of groundwater abstraction and also eliminate some practical problems concerning adherence to specified conditions for spring water abstraction by source user. Efforts to increase the accuracy of the spring water usable amounts estimation is essential, as with the ongoing climate change, pressure can be expected to increase the proportion of real water consumption to the set usable amounts. Assessing the ecological impacts of water abstraction from the springs requires further interdisciplinary research.