High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Water law is the field of law dealing with the ownership, control, and use of water as a resource. It is most closely related to property law, but has also become influenced by environmental law. Because water is vital to living things and to a variety of economic activities, laws attempting to govern it have far-reaching effects. The history of man's relation to water illustrates varied approaches to the management of water resources. The Etruscans had a deep knowledge of hydrology and hydraulics, a knowledge which they put to good use in their many land drainage schemes.