37-1101. Definitions
In this chapter, unless the context otherwise requires:
1. "Arizona navigable stream adjudication commission" or "commission" means the
Arizona navigable stream adjudication commission established by section 37-1121.
2. "Bed" means the land lying between the ordinary high watermarks of a
watercourse.
3. "Highway for commerce" means a corridor or conduit within which the exchange of
goods, commodities or property or the transportation of persons may be conducted.
4. "Man-made water conveyance system" means:
(a) An irrigation or drainage canal, lateral canal, ditch or flume.
(b) A municipal, industrial, domestic, irrigation or drainage water system,
including dams, reservoirs and diversion facilities.
(c) A channel or dike that is designed, dedicated and constructed solely for flood
control purposes.
(d) A hydropower inlet and discharge facility.
(e) A canal, lateral canal, ditch or channel for transporting central Arizona
project water.
5. "Navigable" or "navigable watercourse" means a watercourse that was in existence
on February 14, 1912, and at that time was used or was susceptible to being used, in its
ordinary and natural condition, as a highway for commerce, over which trade and travel
were or could have been conducted in the customary modes of trade and travel on water.
6. "Ordinary high watermark" means the line on the banks of a watercourse
established by fluctuations of water and indicated by physical characteristics, such as a
clear natural line impressed on the bank, shelving, changes in the character of the soil,
destruction of terrestrial vegetation or the presence of litter and debris, or by other
appropriate means that consider the characteristics of the surrounding areas. Ordinary
high watermark does not mean the line reached by unusual floods.
7. "Public entity" means the United States and its agents, this state, a county,
city or town, a county flood control district or any other entity established under title
48.
8. "Public trust land" means the portion of the bed of a watercourse that is
located in this state and that is determined to have been a navigable watercourse as of
February 14, 1912. Public trust land does not include land held by this state pursuant
to any other trust.
9. "Public trust purposes" or "public trust values" means commerce, navigation and
fishing.
10. "Riparian area" means a geographically delineated area with distinct resource
values, that is characterized by deep-rooted plant species that depend on having roots in
the water table or its capillary zone and that occurs within or adjacent to a natural
perennial or intermittent stream channel or within or adjacent to a lake, pond or marsh
bed maintained primarily by natural water sources. Riparian area does not include areas
in or adjacent to ephemeral stream channels, artificially created stockponds, man-made
storage reservoirs constructed primarily for conservation or regulatory storage,
municipal and industrial ponds or man-made water or effluent transportation,
distribution, off-stream storage and collection systems.
11. "Watercourse" means the main body or a portion or reach of any lake, river,
creek, stream, wash, arroyo, channel or other body of water. Watercourse does not
include a man-made water conveyance system described in paragraph 4 of this section,
except to the extent that the system encompasses lands that were part of a natural
watercourse as of February 14, 1912.
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