Inhabits savanna woodlands and forest-savanna mosaics near permanent water (East 1999). Defassa Waterbuck are generally limited to areas receiving at least 750 mm annual rainfall, whereas Common Waterbuck persist in drier regimes (Spinage 2013). The species has been recorded to at least 2,100 m in Ethiopia, and perhaps to 3,000 m (Yalden et al. 1996). Waterbuck are able to exploit a range of habitats to which its congeners are specifically adapted, albeit only to a varying degree, being not as aquatic as the Lechwe, nor as independent of water as the Kob (Spinage 2013). Waterbuck are classified as grazers, but also browse.

The Waterbuck (Kobus ellipsiprymnus) formerly occurred throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa. It has been eliminated widely within its former range, but survives in many protected areas and in some other areas which are sparsely populated by humans. The Defassa Waterbuck is found west of the western Rift Valley and south of the Sahel from Eritrea in the east to Guinea Bissau in the west; its most northerly point of distribution is in southern Mali. A population still exists in Niokola-Koba in Senegal. Defassa Waterbuck also range east of the Congo Basin forest, spreading west below the basin’s southern limit through Zambia into Angola. Another branch of the distribution extends northwards, west to the Congo River in Congo Republic. Waterbuck are extinct in Gambia, though vagrants may enter from Senegal (Spinage 2013). East of the eastern Rift Valley, the Defassa Waterbuck is replaced by the Common Waterbuck, which extends southwards to about the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi N.P. in KwaZulu-Natal and central Namibia. Common Waterbuck are extinct in Ethiopia, though Defassa remain (Spinage 2013).

More than half the population survives in protected areas, with about 60% of Defassa Waterbuck and more than half of Common Waterbuck in protected areas, plus 13% on private land (East 1999). The species occurs in Niokolo-Koba (Senegal), Comoe (Côte d'Ivoire), Arly-Singou and Nazinga (Burkina Faso), Mole and Bui (Ghana), Pendjari (Benin), the national parks and hunting zones of North Province (Cameroon), Manovo-Gounda-St. Floris (Central African Republic), Moukalaba (Gabon), Garamba and Virunga (Congo-Kinshasa), the Awash Valley and Omo-Mago-Murule (Ethiopia), Murchison Falls and Queen Elizabeth National Parks (Uganda), Serengeti, Moyowosi-Kigosi, Ugalla River and Katavi-Rukwa (Tanzania) and Kafue (Zambia), but about half of these populations are in decline because of poaching (East 1999). Important populations of the Common Waterbuck occur in areas such as Tsavo, Laikipia, Kajiado, Lake Nakuru and the coastal rangelands (Kenya), Tarangire and Selous-Mikumi (Tanzania), the Luangwa Valley (Zambia), and Kruger, Hluhluwe-Umfolozi and private land (South Africa) (East 1999).