Is there anywhere where water itself is fully private property? I'm just curious how that works when it comes to a river.
[NB Not being snarky - I genuinely want to know how it works to "own" water in something like a river which by its very nature doesn't stay in one place]
What has been tried in Australia is allocation rights -- X litres of water per year. The problem is that the market doesn't have coverage of the whole supply.
Plus you actually need derivatives to deal with the fact that ... um ... river flow varies from year to year. So some rights have to be more secure (and more expensive) than others.
The key though is that for the system to work it has to be enforceable against people upstream. Otherwise it's pointless.
We don't have that. That rivers cross borders is not a Federal responsibility is a known bug in our constitution.
[NB Not being snarky - I genuinely want to know how it works to "own" water in something like a river which by its very nature doesn't stay in one place]