FUTURE NEEDS FOR DEVELOPMENT 243 



the recharge area. The problems in many developed artesian 

 reservoirs are not due to a deficiency of replenishment in the 

 recharge area but to the slow rate at which water moves from 

 there to the wells. 



Legal Concepts 



The legal concepts concerning water, which set the permis- 

 sive limits of development, have necessarily been founded 

 upon the hydrologic information available at the time they 

 were formulated and thus reflect the incompleteness of scien- 

 tific knowledge to a degree. The hydrologist can build from 

 scratch in the areas of his most profound ignorance. The 

 specialist in water law has a more difficult job, because legal 

 concepts have been developed even when the hydrologic facts 

 and the underlying basic physical principles were not known. 

 Many established concepts are now known to be scientifically 

 unsound and should be revised in the light of present knowl- 

 edge. The following discussion is therefore concerned to a 

 considerable extent with the deficiencies of those concepts, 

 deficiencies that must be corrected if sound development is 

 to be made of the water resources. 



PROBLEMS OF WATER RIGHTS 



A water right is a right to use the water and is very generally 

 recognized in court decisions as real property, entitled to pro- 

 tection to the same extent as other forms of property. The 

 laws evolved for the definition and protection of water rights 

 are basically limitations on the use of water by others, so that 

 the water shall be available for use by the holder of the right. 



A century ago the water resources in the inhabited parts of 

 this country and in England were far more than adequate for 

 the demand, and the "common-law" doctrine enunciated at 

 that time reflected the relative abundance of supply. 11 Since 



11 Acton v. Blundell (12 M. W. 324), 1843. The decision was to the effect 

 that "the person who owns the surface may dig therein, and apply all that is 

 there found to his own purpose at his free will and pleasure; and that if, in the 



