All water within the State is the property of the people of the State, but the right to the use of water may be acquired by appropriation in the manner provided by law.
Cal. Water Code § 102
General State Policy
Applied in 31 court decisions — leading case 51 Cal. 3d 807 - AIU Insurance v. Superior Court (1990)
Most recently applied in Orange Cnty. Water Dist. v. Sabic Innovative Plastics United States, LLC (August 2017)
Enacted by Stats. 1943, Ch. 368.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.