this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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The areas are fairly arid, to the point where the upstream cities could cut off water from downstream cities by just withholding enough. Therefore, water rights became a thing, with the order of rights going from oldest to newest.
Further agreements were made, like the Colorado River Compact, which negotiated minimum water supplies between the different American states and later included parts of Mexico.
Ah ok so the idea is if youre capturing it, it isnt running off into the river system. That does make sense.
Yeah, and the Colorado & Rio Grande rivers are at least river basins with negotiated agreements. Other parts of the world don't have these agreements and these disagreements could cause wars in the near future.
It also goes into the ground, and catching the rain prevents it from refilling ground water reserves. The issue is some people (Nestlé) could effectively cause a water scarcity issue and sell the water they're taking, when it should belong to everyone.