Water rights from streams and rivers make sense, since there are obvious, literal downstream effects.
In Arizona, where aquifers are continually at risk, there are no state laws against water collection.
The concern here is much less in southwestern states like Arizona because rainfall is only an extremely small portion of aquifer charging. Most water entering this region is the result of snow and snowmelt in further north states, so you can't really change much through control of precipitation... consider, for example‚ that Arizona has had a very unusually wet monsoon season this summer, but this has had basically no effect on Lake Meade. The total rainfall in Arizona is a tiny portion of river and reservoir volume.
Broadly speaking, water in Arizona and New Mexico is the result of precipitation in Colorado and Wyoming. Water in Oregon is mostly the result of precipitation in Oregon (excepting the major Columbia river system which involves BC).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_capture>
I'd written up the Stockton, TX, case at Reddit: <https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5w1zw3/rule_of...>
I'd submitted an article some years back that's one of the few I've found even discussing the principle:
<https://www.texasobserver.org/playing-by-the-rule/>
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18005310>
What's fascinating to me are a few elements of this rule:
- It's effectively an argument from ignorance, with a key element being that the behaviours of these resources is not and cannot be known. Increasingly, both premises are now false, but significant case law still stands. One specific being a Texas Supreme Court ruling, Houston & Texas Central Railroad Co. v. East (1904). I've been unable to acquire a copy of this and would very much like to do so.
- The principle has exceedingly interesting implications over just what "property" is, and where property rights emerge. Given the centrality of this principle to virtually our entire present economic system and technological civilisation, this seems ... important.
- There's been some movement against Rule of Capture, and in particular, the concepts of unitised production (concerning oil and gas in Texas) and "certificates of clearance" (instituted by the US Department of Interior under Harold Ikes), both in or around 1931. National producers (notably Saudi Arabia) have instituted their own novel solution through a family-owned / nationalised oil industry But so far as I'm aware, the principle still stands as valid caselaw.
And, incidentally, you're correct on the airspace issue, see US v. Causby (1946) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Causby>. I was interested in the other elements discussed above.