LAW6126: Water Law

This course examines the legal mechanisms by which society allocates and protects its most vital natural resource: water. The primary emphasis is on current legal and policy issues, but the course also addresses the historical development of water policy and water law in the United States. Topics include: the riparian and prior appropriation doctrines and modern administrative permitting schemes governing private uses of surface water and groundwater; public rights in water resources; federal and state water resource development, allocation, and control; alternative means of responding to the growing scarcity of fresh water and adapting to changes in the hydrological cycle due to climate change; the appropriate role for market-based approaches; allocation and protection of groundwater resources; environmental limits on water development, including the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and public trust doctrine; tribal water rights; the doctrine of federal reserved water rights; mechanisms for resolving or avoiding conflicts over transboundary water resources.

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