Minimizing fresh raw water and wastewater effluent produced by industry has rigorously been studied over the past two to three decades. However, most studies have focused on rather theoretical illustration with little consideration of technical constraints in industry. Furthermore, use of massive industry data significantly increases the complexity of the problem, and no research paper has covered such a case study with practical solutions. This paper reviews the latest technology of water network synthesis and its applications, and provides a detailed guideline of the whole study procedure with a reference to case study based from refinery complex. Two main methodologies of waterpinch technology and a mathematical optimization programming are reviewed individually, and they are applied to a case study. Economic and operational constraints are embedded into optimization of water network synthesis in order to provide more reliable and achievable solutions for the minimization of fresh water consumption and reduction of waste water effluents. This generic approach can be similarly applied to other industries such as petroleum, steel, and paper manufacturing.