Riparian zones undoubtedly provide valuable ecosystem functions. Their proximity to water makes them vitally important areas. Thus, it is considered very important to identify and map the riparian areas. This study focuses on the importance of these areas by making attempts to delineate them using various methods and Geographic Information Systems. Three methods proposed in the international literature have been used for the identification and delineation of riparian areas. These methods have been developed and applied in the U.S.A. The first method (Holmes et al., 2011), is essentially a functional delineation model that relates the terrain relief with riparian areas. The second method (Wenger, 1999), focuses on slope, land use, potential flood – prone areas and wetlands. The third method (Abood et al., 2019,) is a more complicated method using a large number of criteria and a specific G.I.S. tool to determine the riparian zones. The methods have been applied to Pinios River basin with an area of about 10,000 km², located in Central Greece. The data used in the applied methods, were adapted to the corresponding data of the Pinios River basin. In order to assess and evaluate the results of the applied methods, it was necessary to find a benchmark method. This was the method proposed by the Copernicus program. According to this method, the riparian zones are delineated using high-resolution satellite data for the whole European Union. Comparisons were made for streams of different stream orders of Pinios River basin for the three applied methods. Each one was also compared separately with the riparian areas of the Copernicus method. The findings of the present work indicate that, methods based on fixed widths of riparian areas are inadequate, because they take into account only the river network and no other significant parameters such as geomorphology, vegetation and soil characteristics.