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UUUO<JV upper limit to the right of private landowners to withdraw groundwater, Given public ownership of the groundwater, the legislature retains the power to define what shall constitute reasonable and beneficial use, Absent legislative directive, it seems likely that any use of water on the over' lying land suitable to the character ofthe land would be deemed reasonable and beneficial as long as the water was not wasted42 or used for malicious purposes, 3. If aquifer supplies are insufficient to meet the reasonable and beneficial needs of all overlying owners, ground, water supplies are subject to apportion. ment among the overlying owners. Although apportionment has never been accomplished judicially in Nebraska, repeated case references to "sharing in time of shortage" leave little doubt that this element of the California Rule has been incorporated into Nebraska case law, Precisely how such water would be apportioned or when a shortage is "triggered" have never been established by decision, Presumably a "shortage" may exist to activate the correlative rights apportionment whenever an aquifer is depleted below its long run sustainable yield level, in other words, when- ever an aquifer is mined, As to the apportionment itself, a variety of possibilities exist. An attempt could be made to hydrologically estimate the relative proportion of the aquifer that underlies a particular tract of overlying land and to apportion accordingly, Another alternative would be to establish a uniform allocation per acre of surface area or overlying lands, A third possibility would be to apportion water based on the character of the overlying land, for instance, apportioning the bulk of the allocated water to overlying irrigable land in rural areas, It is unclear, however, whether apportionment would limit use of water to the apportioned quantity or whether apportionment would merely entitle injured parties to com pen, sation from others for excessive use, 4. Supplies of groundwater in excess of those necessary to satisfy the reason. able and beneficial uses of overlying owners may, with public consent, be transferred away from the overlying lands without any oyerlying landowners suffering a compensable injury. Although this rule has never been explicitly stated by the Nebraska Supreme Court it does seem to be the clear implication of the Metro' poliran Utilities case and it is consistent with public ownership of groundwater and with the California Rule of correlative rights, 5. Among members of the same preference class, overlying owners have no right to maintenance of a particular water table or artesian head. This rule was announced In Prather, An exception to the rule might occur in the event of an apportionment if the apportionment con- templated maintenance of a long run static water table, 6. Among members of different preference classes, preferred users are protected from unreasonable reductions in the water table or unreasonable reductions in artesian head caused by the actions of less-preferred users. This rule also follows from Prather, It is not clear whether all subsequent interferences with prior preferred uses are unreasonable or whether a more sophisticated balancing of the equities of competing users will be used, Furthermore, it is not clear whether or not a subsequent preferred user can enforce a right to a water level or artesian head against a prior less preferred user, It seems likely, however, that a preferred user must have a current use interfered with by a subsequent non'preferred use to recover damages, 7. Subirrigation of crops is a reasonable and beneficial use of groundwater. This is one implication of luchsinger, It may, nevertheless, generally prove impossible to maintain water levels required for subirrigation since presumably subirrigation and surface irri, gation would fall with the same preference class, Consequently, under Prather, a landowner would have no right to maintenance of water levels for subirrigation purposes against a pump irrigator responsible for a decline in the water tabte, Additional uncertainties exist under the series of cases set forth above, These uncertainties and questions are discussed in the next chapter, which briefly discusses the limitations inherent in the presently existing set of property rights, at least as articulated above, 1-7