Proceedings of the 2020 Mississippi Water Resources Conference

Year: 2020 Authors: Ko J.

Conflicts over surface and ground water resources in communities have been increasing. Additionally, inter-state disputes over the water resources passing the state borders also have increased, due to increasing water demands from the increasing population, expanding cash crop cultivation, and newly establishing manufacturing facilities in the Southern region including the State of Mississippi. The current water policy in the region is mainly based on the historical legacy of presuming limitless private property. For example, the State of Mississippi has been in legal disputes with the neighboring Tennessee over the groundwater flow near the state border to secure more groundwater. These cases show well serious challenges in designing programs for stabilizing water table in aquafer, and for sustainable water use in state. The presentation will contrast the common property-based management with the private property-based management in water management. The State of Arizona, which has been experiencing rapidly depleting groundwater, has adopted the common-property based water management, mandating estimation of safe-yield and preservation of groundwater for future use. The proposed study examines differences in water policy between Arizona and Mississippi as a way of exploring sustainable water use, while reducing conflicts over the valuable natural resource.