Open AccessWater rights, river compacts, and legal-policy stationarity in the American West*
Author(s) -
Eric P. Perramond
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
environmental research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.37
H-Index - 124
ISSN - 1748-9326
DOI - 10.1088/1748-9326/ab649a
Subject(s) - adjudication , american west , hydrology (agriculture) , scale (ratio) , water flow , flow (mathematics) , environmental science , water resource management , geography , law , geology , political science , mathematics , history , soil science , geotechnical engineering , cartography , ethnology , geometry
This article examines static-data assumptions trapped in water rights and, separately, in larger interstate river compacts in the American West. These reflect assumptions of scalar stationarity embedded in water codes in western states. State water adjudications sort how much water is being used, but the resulting data are often publicly unavailable and unchanged. Interstate river compacts often divide fixed, erroneous river flow data. River compact data, based on early 20th century optimistic estimates of river flow, have not changed in policy language. At both the micro- and the macro-scale, these separate data remain fixed, complicating water management in the American West.