• One objective of water law is to document water usage, who has the right to use water, and assess whether water is available for additional uses.
• Water law is a combination of science, social policy and legal rights.

• U.S. water law emerged from the common law; that is, a history of court decisions. During the past century, many of the legal principles have been codified by state legislatures into statutory laws; some of the codifications continued the common law principles while other codifications modified or replaced the common law principles.
  • A study of the common law is important to gain an understanding of water law, but the study needs to be augmented with an introduction to relevant statutory and regulatory law. An objective of this web site is to provide links to some of these statutes; however, the challenge is complex because water law is state law and many states have included provisions to address their unique needs. or issues.

Different types of water uses:

• Diversionary uses:  the water is diverted from its source, examples include irrigation, domestic (household, livestock), municipal, industrial

• In-stream or flow uses:  navigation, hydroelectric, fish and wildlife, recreation, waste dilution

• In-site uses:  swamps, wetlands, vegetation, wildlife

• North Dakota statutory law defines water uses (N.D.C.C. §61-04-01.1)
  • Domestic use
  • Fish, wildlife, and recreation
  • Industrial use
  • Irrigation use
  • Livestock use
  • Municipal or public use

• Agriculture is a major user of water in the western U.S.

  • Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 2000; U.S. Geological Survey

  • "Nationwide, agriculture accounts for nearly 80 percent of all water consumption. That figure is even higher west of the Mississippi. Three-quarters of all cropland in the Western United States is irrigated. The 16 percent of harvested cropland that is irrigated accounts for nearly half of the value of all crops sold. Nationwide, nearly 100 percent of all orchard sales and more than 80 percent of the sales of vegetables and potatoes are produced on irrigated cropland.

  "Increasingly, in all regions of the country, demand for water is growing faster than supply. Increasing demands—for urban, environmental, and Native American uses and for the production of hydroelectric power—and declining supplies— arising in part from land use changes including urbanization, deforestation, and fewer wetlands—create conflicts over water allocations. Conflicts arising over scarce water supplies in river basins throughout the West may foreshadow emerging conflicts in Eastern States. Because it accounts for such a large percentage of total water use, agriculture is uniquely positioned to be a part of the solution.
  

  "Incentives and technical support for improved on-farm water management encourage farmers to do more with less and provide some regulatory and drought relief for farmers who have to cut back. Conservation programs can also play an important role in helping to solve water management issues on the  watershed scale. Voluntary conservation programs and risk management programs could be parlayed, in conjunction with other Tribal, State, and Federal agencies, to develop market-based water banks to help mitigate the high cost to all water users of droughtinduced water supply reductions. Water banks could consist of producers who would voluntarily idle production on irrigated lands in drought years in return for payment. Such a program would minimize the cost of disruptions associated with droughts while keeping resources (water, land, and labor) in production in nondrought years. Encouraging development of more on-farm water storage facilities (such as reservoirs and storm water ponds) can help alleviate local shortages."

  Source:  "Emerging Challenge Water and Agriculture: Inextricably Linked" taken from "Food and Agricultural Policy -- Taking Stock for the New Century," page 81 of pdf file