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The United States inherited the British common law system which develops legal principles through judicial decisions made in the context of disputes between parties. . Statutory and constitutional law forms the framework within which these disputes are resolved, to some extent, but decisional law developed through the resolution of specific disputes is the great engine of w
Water resources law (in some jurisdictions, shortened to "water law") is the field of law dealing with the ownership, control, and use of water as a resource. It is most closely related to property law , and is distinct from laws governing water quality .
Water right in water law is the right of a user to use water from a water source, e.g., a [1] river, stream, pond or source of groundwater. In areas with plentiful water and few users, such systems are generally not complicated or contentious.
Water is very scarce in the West and so must be allocated sparingly, based on the productivity of its use. The prior appropriation doctrine developed in the Western United States from Spanish (and later Mexican) civil law and differs from the riparian water rights that apply in the rest of the United States.
The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) is the primary federal law in the United States intended to ensure safe drinking water for the public. [3] Pursuant to the act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is required to set standards for drinking water quality and oversee all states, localities, and water suppliers that implement the standards.
Applicable to all drainage basins that cross national boundaries, except where other agreement between bordering nations exists, the Helsinki Rules assert the rights of all bordering nations to an equitable share in the water resources, with reasonable consideration of such factors as past customary usages of the resource and balancing variant needs and demands of the bordering nations.
Commentary by experts at the California Water Institute at Fresno State.
The laws listed below meet the following criteria: (1) they were passed by the United States Congress, and (2) pertain to (a) the regulation of the interaction of humans and the natural environment, or (b) the conservation and/or management of natural or historic resources.