Background to the water law of august 2, 1985

Abstract

From the second third of the 19th century, when a socioeconomic improvement based on agriculture took place, the water revealed itself as the main development factor and its use began to be legally regulated. These scattered and unsystematic regulations were mainly due to pacts between parties with opposing interests. In 1866 the first Water Law was born, which hierarchized its uses, grouped and ordered numerous dispersed precepts, tried to respect the customary law and, within the liberal framework of its time, differentiated between public and private water supply. The strong political tensions of the period between the years 1867-1876, generated in Spain very important constitutional legislative changes that had an impact on the water sector with the Water Law of 1879 being born. This law replaces the previous one, and focuses its normative on terrestrial waters, regulating the rights and obligations that derive from the water property, use and economic exploitation, although it continues to maintain a private legal regime for groundwater and an administrative system for public surface water.