While the value of our natural resources has traditionally been viewed in narrow economic terms, in recent years we have begun to appreciate the inherent worth of our land, air, and water - a worth that is entirely unrelated to economic growth and development. The evolution of law and policy regarding natural resource and environmental issues over the past century reflects these ongoing changes in attitude. Natural Resources Policy and Law explores past, present, and future directions in natural resource and environmental law and policy, with a special emphasis on new laws and important legal cases of the past decade and their implications for the future. Its ten chapters, each written by a leading expert in the field, consider both specific concerns and broad themes, including topics such as history and evolution of natural resources law and policy; laws governing mining and minerals, oil and gas, and public lands; the relationship between environmentalism and environmental law; and future directions of the field.

This casebook remains the most comprehensive available on water law. It gives extensive coverage to both Eastern and Western common law, customary and statutory allocation systems, Indian water rights, and interstate allocation law and the historical forces that produced these systems. It also covers the federal government's historic role in constructing irrigation, flood control and navigation projects and the changing roles of local water supply organizations. All chapters emphasize the challenges that states and the federal water resources agencies are facing such as climate change adaptation, environmental restoration and the reallocation of existing entitlements.