Water law, with special reference to ground water

This report was prepared in July 1950 at the request of the President's Water Resources Policy Commission. It followed the report entitled Water facts in relation to a national water-resources policy," which, in part, has been published as Geological Survey Circular 114 under the title "The water situation in the United States, with special reference to ground water.''

The only changes made in preparing this report for publication as a circular were revision of the sections on Idaho, Indiana, Massachusetts, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, and Texas, to bring them up to date.

This report discusses some of the problems in the field of water law and summarizes briefly the laws providing for the acquiring, of water rights in the different States. The need for consideration of the subject is brought out in Circular 114. In that report it was pointed out that: (1) The use of water in the United States is increasing rapidly and undoubtedly will continue to do so; (2) ground water must meet a large and perhaps an increasing share of our water demands; (3) the full development of the water resources of ever more numerous and larger areas will require manipulation of stream systems and ground-water reservoirs to protect them from overdevelopment or pollution and to increase and maintain their yield of water of good quality; and (4) such manipulation, as well as the protection of existing rights, requires control of water use by means of hydrologically sound statutes.