ABSTRACT
Paradoxically, the opposite holds in high-income countries: wherever customary water law occurs, this is recognized as functional, accepted and nurtured. This chapter aims to unravel this paradox, with a focus on permit systems. Permit systems are widely promoted across the globe as the supposedly most effective form of statutory law amidst plural water laws. The Water Resources Commission Act of 1996 led to the setting up of a Water Use Permits Data Base, which is essentially a volume-based billing tool. In South Africa, the riparian rights system was adopted in 1912. Groundwater became private water. S. Hodgson defines water tenure as 'the relationships, whether legally or customarily defined between people, as individuals or groups, with respect to water resources'. While already almost universally adopted across low- and middle-income countries in Latin America and Africa, more Asian states and countries have also started adopting permit systems as a strongly promoted core ingredient of integrated water resource management.
