Interesting Article on Water Rights
Posted by John McAllister on Thu, Apr 19, 2012 @ 02:01 PM
Here in the northeast, despite the unusually dry spring we are having, we live in a "water rich" climate, with around 45 inches per year of rainfall. In fact we get so much rainfall, that we as engineers are concerned with whether or not the intensity of the rainfall events for the stormwater management systems we design should be increased. Because of our frequent and consistent rainfall, you typically don't hear much about water rights. Out west, water rights are more of an issue, particulary around the Colorado River basin, which provides the drinking water supply for several states in that area. That being said, water rights issues can be very important in different places, which was clearly demonstrated in a recent article in Time.
The article is about the water rights to rivers when the states of India and Pakistan were created. The article provides some good perspective about the issues upstream impacts can have on downstream resources, please have a read and leave us some comments with anything you've taken away from the article: Waters wars with India and Pakistan