| Abstract: | ABSTRACT: Lawyers, engineers, and hydrologists are accustomed to thinking of water law as falling into one of two incompatible models: riparian rights (under which water is allocated by courts according to the relative reasonableness of the competing uses) and appropriative rights (under which water is allocated according to the temporal priority of the competing uses, largely by the action of the water users themselves but perfected by the issuance of an administrative permit). Usually unnoticed is the existence of a third approach, which I have dubbed “regulated riparianism.” Under regulated riparianism, water is allocated by water permits issued after an administrative determination of the reasonableness of the proposed use before the use is commenced. This system, now in place in about half of the states east of Kansas City (plus Hawaii), thus is fundamentally different from either the traditional ripanan rights that it replaces or the appropriative rights found in western states. |
