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A prescriptive water right holder has a higher priority right than the original owner from whom the right is taken. 36 CALIFORNIA WATER riparian rights are not severed if the parties to the sale intended to preserve the rights in the detached parcels, either through language in the sale agreement or by implication Hudson v. Dailey (1909) 156 Cal. 617, 624-625. After riparian rights are severed from the land due to loss of contiguity, the rights will not be regained if the property is sub- sequently reconveyed into one ownership. Anaheim Union, page 331. Condemnation. Riparian rights can also be severed from land through condemnation by a public agency for a public purpose. Miller & Lux v. Madera Canal & Irr. Co. (1909) 155 Cal. 59,65. Article X, Sec- tion 5, specifically contemplates the condemnation of water rights for public uses. Cal. Canst. art. X, S 5. Riparian rights can also be severed through inverse condemnation when a governmental agency takes water for a public use and fails to compensate the holder of the ri- parian rights. Collier v. Merced Irr. Dist. (1931) 213 Cal. 554, 563-564. Prescription. Because riparian water rights are real property rights, these rights may be lost by prescription. Pasadena, pages 926-927. By defmition, a prescriptive water right holder has a higher priority right than the original owner from whom the right is taken. If a water user takes water and thereby injures a lawful riparian right in a manner which is open, notorious, hostile, exclusive, con- tinuous, and under claim of right, that use of water can result in a legal cause of action. Failure to sue on that cause of action for a period of five years can result in a legal determination that the riparian right has been lost. Pasadena. pages 926-927. The amount of the riparian right lost by the riparian and gained by the prescriptor is the amount of water applied by the prescriptive user to a reasonable, beneficial use under reasonable methods of di- version and use. E. Clemens Horst Co. v. Tarr Mining Co. (1917) 174 Cal. 430. In order for prescription to run, there must be an invasion of a riparian's present reasonable, beneficial use, and prescription cannot run against surplus water. Rank, page 113. A prescriptive right cannot be gained by a downstream user of water against an upstream riparian because, once water has flowed past upstream riparian land, the downstream use would not cause any injury to the upstream user and therefore would not be adverse. Orange Co. Water Dist. v. City of Riverside (1959) 173 Cal.App.2d 137, 185. It is commonly stated that "prescription does not run upstream." AbandonmenVnonuse. Unlike some other water rights, riparian rights cannot be abandoned or lost through nonuse (except as the priority may be subordinated in a statutory adjudication)6 6 Hutchins, pages 285, 291.