Water right is the right to divert water for beneficial use.

Water rights in California are legal permissions to use water from a source like a river, stream (surface water), or groundwater for a beneficial purpose. A water right is a  usufructuary right aka individuals and organizations can acquire the right to use the water, but don’t own the water as ownership remains with the people of California through the state and federal governments.

Types of Water Rights –

  1. Appropriative Water Rights- by permit from the State Water Board after 1914
  2. Pre-1914 Water Rights- expansive water right that can be exported to other watersheds, appropriated before the 1914 requirement to obtain permit from the State Water Board.
  3. Riparian right – river water rights for adjacent unsevered lands
  4.  Pueblo Rights– municipal held right as successor of a Spanish or Mexican pueblo, expansive and oldest right
  5. Prescriptive Rights– obtained by adverse use over 5 years.
  6. Federal Reserved Rights– reserved from public use on Federal Land for primary purpose only i.e. Indian Reservations & parks.
  7. Groundwater– by overlying land owners and are correlative (related to one another)

California Constitution requires that all water use be both “reasonable and beneficial”. Constitution’s Article X, Section 2

  • Beneficial uses includes-
    • ag irrigation;
    • hydroelectric power;  
    • residential,
    • municipal
    • industrial needs;
    • recreation; 
    • and protection and enhancement of fish and wildlife.

The constitution provision provides 5 limitations on all water rights in California:

  1. beneficial purpose of use
  2. reasonable amount of use (prohibition against waste and unreasonable use);
  3. reasonable place or point of diversion;
  4. reasonable method or manner of diversion;
  5. reasonable method or manner of use.

The Federal government and California government “may affect water rights through laws such as the Endangered Species Act — protecting endangered or threatened species— and the Federal Power Act — the licensing and operating of hydropower dams and reservoirs used to generate electricity. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which constructs and operates water projects” known in California as the Central Valley Project (CVP) and California projects are part of the State Water Project (SWP). Water Education.org

Groundwater

Subject to the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) in critical and medium priority basins. See SGMA Water Education Foundation

“The California Supreme Court decided in the 1903 case Katz v. Walkinshaw that the “reasonable use” provision that governs other types of water rights also applies to ground water. Prior to this time, the English system of unregulated ground water pumping had dominated but proved to be inappropriate to California’s semiarid climate. The Supreme Court case established the concept of overlying rights, in which the rights of others with land overlying the aquifer must be taken into account. Later court decisions established that ground water may be appropriated for use outside the basin, although appropriator’s rights are subordinate to those with overlying rights.” State Water Board

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