Journal article
Water rights for groundwater environments as an enabling condition for adaptive water governance
RL Nelson
Ecology and Society | RESILIENCE ALLIANCE | Published : 2022
Abstract
Despite now widespread scholarly scientific acknowledgement of the ecological importance of groundwater, progress on protecting groundwater-dependent ecosystems (GDEs) in practice has been slow. Extending the legal concept of environmental water rights from the surface water context to groundwater may help to accelerate protections and to promote adaptive water governance, particularly when combined with regulatory rules. Although some groundwater law frameworks have developed regulatory rules to protect GDEs that mirror those for surface water, they have yet to develop frameworks to support environmental groundwater rights that mirror environmental surface water rights, i.e., in-ground flow..
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Awarded by Australian Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
This work is based on research funded by the Australian Research Council (#DE180101154). The article benefited from research assistance from Lucas Volfneuk, thoughtful feedback from Amanda Cravens, Nicola Ulibarri, A. R. Siders, Debra Perrone, Peter Cook, and Erin O'Donnell, and helpful comments from two anonymous reviewers. It was originally conceived in response to a research consulting investigation undertaken for a local farmers' and residents' group in southwestern Victoria, Australia, the Land and Water Resources Otway Catchment (LAWROC) group that is referred to in Appendix 1. I extend my thanks to Marina and Neil Longmore and the larger LAWROC group for their welcome and thoughtful consideration of groundwater issues. All opinions and any errors remain mine alone.