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Full-Text Articles in Law
Drought And Public Necessity: Can A Common-Law "Stick" Increase Flexibility In Western Water Law?, Robin Kundis Craig
Drought And Public Necessity: Can A Common-Law "Stick" Increase Flexibility In Western Water Law?, Robin Kundis Craig
Texas A&M Law Review
Drought is a recurring—and likely increasing—challenge to water rights administration in western states under the prior appropriation doctrine, where “first in time” senior rights are often allocated to non-survival uses such as commercial agriculture, rather than to drinking water supply for cities. While states and localities facing severe drought have used a variety of voluntary programs to reallocate water, these programs by their very nature cannot guarantee that water will in fact be redistributed to the uses that best promote public health and community survival. In addition, pure market solutions run the risk that “survival water” will become too expensive …
All Dried Out: How Responses To Drought Make Droughts Worse, Vanessa Casado-Pérez
All Dried Out: How Responses To Drought Make Droughts Worse, Vanessa Casado-Pérez
Faculty Scholarship
Water usage is governed through a variety of mechanisms, including government administration and market tools. In 2006-2008 Barcelona’s region, a water scarce area, suffered a drought comparable to the one faced today by the US West. This article surveys a variety of techniques which were or could have been used to address these scarcity challenges. Spanish water regulations established water markets in 1999 but neither the design, nor its implementation were optimal. In addition to the design and implementation flaws, the response to the 2006-2008 drought crisis shows how emergency measures highjack water markets as a viable solution to water …
Missing Water Markets: A Cautionary Tale Of Governmental Failure, Vanessa Casado-Pérez
Missing Water Markets: A Cautionary Tale Of Governmental Failure, Vanessa Casado-Pérez
Faculty Scholarship
California is facing a water crisis. Water is managed through a variety of mechanisms, including government administration and market tools. This Article argues for a regulated market-based solution. When it comes to water markets, the invisible hand needs help from the visible hand of government to prove effective. Administrative systems and markets are usually portrayed in opposition to each other, as mutually exclusive solutions. Water market advocates suggest government's role is minimal. However, as this Article identifies, to establish and maintain a functioning water market, government needs to play a variety of roles. These include the uncontested role of defining …