For Those of You Who Covered Water Rights in Property...

... today's M-W's word of the day is riparian.

riparian \ruh-PAIR-ee-un\ adjective

: relating to or living on the bank of a natural watercourse or sometimes of a lake or tidewater


Example sentence:
Residents of the riparian community learned to brace themselves for a flood whenever the river was close to cresting its banks.

Did you know?
"Riparian" came to English from the same source that gave us "river" — the Latin "riparius," a noun deriving from "ripa," meaning "bank" or "shore." First appearing in English in the 19th century, "riparian" can apply to things that occur alongside a river (such as riparian towns, trees, etc.) as well as things that are found within it (riparian rocks, fish, etc.). Some river communities have laws called "riparian rights," referring to the rights of those owning land along a river to have access to the waterway. Note the distinction of this word from "littoral," which usually refers to things that occur along the shore of a sea or ocean.



I think a better sentence is: The East is more free with their riparian water rights than the West is with their prior appropriation rights because water is easier to come by in the East.