Groundwater Protection in Water Laws

The traditional water laws in many countries in Europe and North America viewed groundwater as the property of the owners of the land above it. Land owners could use the groundwater under his land freely without considering the impact to his neighbours. Today, the rapid development of urbanization and industrialization have resulted excessive extraction of groundwater and pollution of groundwater quality in many countries and regions. The grim situation has prompted the change of the world's water law and made many regulations of groundwater protection come into being. Most of countries in the world have tried to control the extraction of groundwater by issuing licenses, and to protect groundwater from pollution by introducing water quality standards and environmental requirements. The article summarizes the rules relating to the protection of groundwater in the past and present water laws, and analyses the development trend of the groundwater protection in contemporary water laws and the process of international groundwater legislation. The laws specially used for groundwater protection are less. The legislative progress which realizes the sustainable utilization of groundwater is still very slow.