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not provided otherwise, it seems clear that an owner of land is entitled to appropriate sub- terranean waters found beneath his lands. Thus in fhose areas overlying landowners have a property right in "access" to an underlying aquifer.2 The right of access is arguably a con- stitutionally vested right that cannot be taken away without payment of compensation. If it is so vested, the access right is thus something more than a mere license revocable at will. Even so, it seems equally clear that landowners have no property right in the water itself. Water is public property, apparently even after capture, in light ot Sporhase. Given private (possibly vested) rights of aquifer access and public rights to aquifer water, land- owners have little assurance of a continued right to use a source of groundwater. Sporhase clearly states that the public may limit or deny private use of groundwater when the public welfare is at stake. Private use is permitted only at the suffer- ance of the general public. But the rule of law announced in Olson v. Wahoo3 and uniformly adhered to until the Sporhase decision,4 stated that "the ownerof land is entitled to appropriate subterranean waters found under his land,... and if the natural underground supply is insufficient for all owners, each is entitled to a reasonable proportion of the whole,... .,,5 (emphasis added) This language strongly suggests that land- owners overlying a common aquifer have pro- portional rights in the store of water found there- in, rights based on ownership of land not on history of use.6 Under this interpretation of the Nebraska Rule, landowners overlying a common aquifer could be restricted in the amount of water that they could withdraw, but moratoria on new drilling would be constitutionally suspect'? On the other hand, moratoria might be characterized as reasonable police power regulation of proper- ty rights to land rather than a taking of the property right to groundwater, thereby avoiding constitutional difficulties.8 In any event, land- owners at most have an assurance that they will not be disadvantaged vis a vis other overlying landowners; they have no assurance that they can continue to pump indefinitely into the future. In addition to arguable proportional treatment, landowners are protected in other ways from arbitrary exercise of the powerto restrict ground- water use. Under the rule announced in Olson it is possible that only restrictions on use that are related to the overlying land could be sustained.9 Thus, a prorata reduction of pumping could be implemented as could use restrictions that varied with the crop irrigated or the capability class of the land. Similarly, the state may be able to suspend pumping over an entire aquifer with- out payment of compensation. 2-2 But for the limited protections developed above, a landowner's right to use groundwater may be no more than a license revocable by the state at will. Further, because prescriptive rights (rights obtained only because of long-continued use) do not run against the state, no right to continue using water arises from use, no matter how long a histoy of use can be demonstrated. Thus, the state can probably limit groundwater withdrawals, prohibit groundwater withdrawals, restrict groundwater uses, alter statutory prefer- ences, or otherwise affect the use of ground- water without payment ot compensation as long as the restrictions are not arbitrary or discrimin- atory. The Nebraska Rule of Reasonable Use also establishes an upper limit on the amount of groundwater that can be withdrawn and used by overlying owners. This upper limit is defined as the amount that can be reasonably and bene- ficially applied to overlying land owned by the withdrawing party. Private landowners should be able to pursue a private cause of action against any other landowner who exceeds this upper limit. The difficulty is In determining when the upper limit is reached. Absent statutory direction, 1 0 the Nebraska Supreme Court would probably adopt a definition based on the concept of "waste" and most non-malicious uses of water would be permitted. Thus, in normal course, a landowner has very little ability to protect a supply of groundwater from encroachment by others. A landowner's ability to protect a supply of groundwater improves, however, if it can be demonstrated that supplies are insufficient to meet the needs of all overlying owners bringing the "sharing in time of shortage" language of Olson into play. Unfortunately, no definition of shortage can be found in case law or in statutes. Nor is there any real indication of who is entitled to share in time of shortage. Individual rights would probably be correlated using tort prin- ciples designed to balance the equities among competing users bearing in mind that, at least in the absence of statutory direction to the contrary, all overlying users are entitled to a reasonable share of the whole. However, there is no method by which a landowner can quantify his rights to water in place.11 PROTECTION OF PUBLIC RIGHTS The public power to regulate and control groundwater use appears to be exceedingly broad in light of recent NebraSka Supreme Court decisions. There may, however, be some limits on the power of the state to vest groundwater rightS in private hands given the strong statements of public ownership found in the Sporhase decision.