Water injection systems are predominantly useful in forced induction (turbocharged or supercharged), internal combustion engines. Only in extreme cases such as very high compression ratios, very low octane fuel or too much ignition advance can it benefit a normally aspirated engine. The system has been around for a long time since it was already used in some World War II aircraft engines.
A water injection system works similarly to a fuel injection system with the difference that it injects water, or a mixture of water and alcohol, instead of fuel. Water injection is not to be confused with water spraying on the inlet air chargecooler's Ttsurface, water spraying is much less efficient and far less sophisticated.
The sole function of water injection is avoiding detonation. There are mainly three variations of water injection systems. They are dependent of the location of the water injectors. The first technique consists of injecting water at the entrance of the intake manifold. The second injects water at the exit pipe of the intercooler. The third technique injects water at the entry of the intercooler and is only used in competition vehicles. In this latter variation most of the in-cylinder detonation prevention is done by injecting additional fuel which is then used as coolant (i.e. is not burned) and runs the engine above the stoechiometric ratio (i.e. rich).