However, the rapid pace of urbanization in Asian, African and Latin American countries has served to stimulate "several studies of water problems in megacities, secondary cities, peri-urban areas, and squatter settlements." (Muir, 2007)

That the management of water is emphasized on the state level in the United States is stated to come as little surprise in a country characterized by a federal system of government. This is because "Constitutional authority for water law and policy rests principally at the state level of government." (Muir, 2007) Muir notes that there has been a neglect of 'interstate water relations due to an emphasis on "interstate river basins and regulated rivers. River basin surveys were one of the earliest forms of water resource geography, dating back to the work of Phillipe Bauache in eighteen-century France, developing slowly in the nineteenth century with surveys of the upper Mississippi River by Claude Nicollet and Western...
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