History of Water Rights
In Roman times, the law was that people could obtain temporary usufructuary rights for running water. These rights were independent of land ownership, and lasted as long as use continued. Under Roman law, no land was "owned" by citizens, it was all owned by the "republic" and controlled by politicians.
In Medieval times, the common law of the day treated all freshwater streams as static, meaning landowners owned parts of rivers, with full accompanying rights. Landowners could also seek damages for loss of water diverted upstream. Non-landowners did not have use rights, except by obtaining a prescription.
Over time, rights evolved from being land based to use based, allowing non-landowners to hold enforceable rights. A reasonable use rule evolved in some countries.
Read more about this topic: Water Right
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history, water and/or rights:
“No one is ahead of his time, it is only that the particular variety of creating his time is the one that his contemporaries who are also creating their own time refuse to accept.... For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and literature the rapidity of the change is always startling.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“No one is ahead of his time, it is only that the particular variety of creating his time is the one that his contemporaries who are also creating their own time refuse to accept.... For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and literature the rapidity of the change is always startling.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“We wished our two souls
might return like gulls
to the rock. In the end,
the water was too cold for us.”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)
“In our governments the real power lies in the majority of the community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of government contrary to the sense of the constituents, but from the acts in which government is the mere instrument of the majority.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)