Book contents
- Riverflow
- Riverflow
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Maps
- Foreword: Marching Away from Folly
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction Publicum Ius Aquae
- 1 Instream Rights and the Public Trust
- 2 Instream Rights and Unreasonable Use
- 3 Instream Rights and Dams
- 4 Instream Rights and Watershed Governance
- 5 Instream Rights as Federal Law Recedes
- 6 Instream Rights as Water Temperatures Rise
- 7 Instream Rights as Sea Levels Rise
- 8 Instream Rights and Groundwater Extraction
- 9 Instream Rights and Old Canals
- 10 Instream Rights and Water as an Investment
- 11 Instream Rights and International Law
- 12 Instream Rights and Irrigation Subsidies
- 13 Instream Rights and Pacific Salmon
- 14 Instream Rights and Hatchery Fish
- 15 Instream Rights as Indigenous Rights
- Conclusion Policy Disconnected from Science
- About the Author
- Index
Introduction - Publicum Ius Aquae
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 February 2021
- Riverflow
- Riverflow
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Maps
- Foreword: Marching Away from Folly
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction Publicum Ius Aquae
- 1 Instream Rights and the Public Trust
- 2 Instream Rights and Unreasonable Use
- 3 Instream Rights and Dams
- 4 Instream Rights and Watershed Governance
- 5 Instream Rights as Federal Law Recedes
- 6 Instream Rights as Water Temperatures Rise
- 7 Instream Rights as Sea Levels Rise
- 8 Instream Rights and Groundwater Extraction
- 9 Instream Rights and Old Canals
- 10 Instream Rights and Water as an Investment
- 11 Instream Rights and International Law
- 12 Instream Rights and Irrigation Subsidies
- 13 Instream Rights and Pacific Salmon
- 14 Instream Rights and Hatchery Fish
- 15 Instream Rights as Indigenous Rights
- Conclusion Policy Disconnected from Science
- About the Author
- Index
Summary
Many people around the world are familiar with the concept of a legal right to use water. That is, the right to divert water out of stream for consumptive use, or the right to use water instream to generate hydropower. This concept of a legal right is private in nature, a right held by the party that uses the water to grow crops, to provide water for domestic use, to operate a hydropower facility on a river. For example, in the American West, such private entitlements to water include riparian surface water rights (which derive from the early English common law) and prior appropriation surface water rights (which emerged after the California gold rush).
Alongside these accepted notions of private rights to water, however, there is an equally long tradition in many countries of a public right to keep water instream – for fisheries, for navigation, for flows to preserve water quality. In the Roman Empire, the Latin term was publicum ius aquae (public water right) and was closely related to the status of fish and instream flows as res communis (things held/owned in common by the public) under Roman law.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- RiverflowThe Right to Keep Water Instream, pp. 1 - 14Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021