Water rights are the legal rights of property owners to access and use bodies of water adjacent to lands they hold. Different types of water rights exist based on various forms of water that border or exist on a property.

• A. Legal rights to ownership of all water worldwide.
• B. Legal rights of property owners to access and use bodies of water adjacent to lands they hold.
• C. Right to refuse water access to others.
• D. Rights to own groundwater exclusively.

Answer: (B)

Water rights describe what a landowner may do with water that borders or lies on their property. The statement that property owners have legal rights to access and use bodies of water adjacent to lands they hold captures this idea precisely: it reflects how ownership of land often carries associated rights to use nearby surface water, within the bounds of law and local rules. This isn’t about owning water worldwide, which would ignore public and shared-resource principles. It also doesn’t imply a blanket right to exclude others from water use entirely, since most jurisdictions recognize that water use must be reasonable and balanced with downstream and public interests. And groundwater rights, when applicable, are frequently regulated separately from surface-water rights, so the general concept targets surface water tied to the land rather than exclusively groundwater.