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With more than 40 inches of annual precipitation and some of the nation’s biggest lakes and rivers by volume, Oregon has few natural resources as abundant as water.

But even with so much water, Lewis & Clark College law professor Janet Neuman believes the state’s glass is still half empty.

The state’s land-use system has a long, internationally recognized history, but its cousin, the water-rights system, has received nowhere near the same amount of attention from state lawmakers. Also, Oregon’s water resources are diminishing because of climate change and increased competition, Neuman said. So she is pushing for new water regulations, including some that could affect land use and businesses in Oregon.

“It’s hard to get that concerned about water here in Portland with the immense amount of rain and fact that we’re bisected by two rivers,” Neuman told a crowd at a City Club of Portland event last week. “But it’s a growing issue both locally and across the world as we move forward.”

Oregon has an abundance of water, but it also has an abundance of water users. Some of the state’s biggest industries – agriculture and technology manufacturing – require a lot of water. For example, a silicon wafer manufacturing plant uses 2 million to 4 million gallons of clean water per day. An average household uses about 200 gallons a day.

And demand is increasing.

The city of Portland’s long-term growth plan estimates that daily demand for water will increase by 40 million gallons by 2040. Additionally, the city is expected to need an additional 20 million gallons per day to make up for losses due to climate change.

Greater demand and a drop in supply will tax the state’s water-use system, which is over 100 years old, according to Neuman. If lawmakers could remake the system, she said, they wouldn’t replicate it.

Under state law, the party with legal rights to a waterway in a time of water shortage is the first appropriator to put that waterway to productive use. But since Oregonians have been using water in productive ways for nearly 200 years, pinpointing initial appropriators can be difficult.

State lawmakers noted this and started the process of updating the system last year by directing state staffers to draft the state’s first water conservation and management plan. Oregon is one of only two states to not have such a plan.

“Is the system here in Oregon archaic? You bet,” said Anita Winkler, executive director of Oregon Water Resources Congress, a group dedicated to protecting water rights. “But can it be fixed? Absolutely.”

Winkler said the plan – the – would help, but a lack of state funding is a cause for concern. State legislators last year started work on the document, but will have to go through another budgeting process to finish. The plan is supposed to be completed in 2012, but Winkler said the funding issue could cause a delay.

When the plan is finally completed, Neuman doesn’t believe it will be enough. She also wants the water-use system to be tied more closely with the state’s land-use system.

“You hear the debates about the use and need for developable land all the time in Oregon, but it’s never tied to the use or need for water,” she said. “Water is just as important of a raw material.

“It’s just as big of an economic driver.”

Neuman suggested making sure any update to the water-rights system meshes well with the land-use system and state planning goals. She also believes there needs to be a better correspondence between state and local agencies that make land-use and water-use decisions, or even a group that oversees both.

Portland’s recently adopted , which is being appealed, is one effort that could benefit from this sort of planning. The city wants to update zoning on properties near the Willamette River to protect it, but there are no planning goals to help direct the effort in relationship to the water. This has slowed the process significantly and left it open to debate.

Neuman also said that pricing may be the best deterrent to overuse. She noted that it was controversial, but added that water is too cheap in Oregon for anyone to take notice of how much they are using. She is pushing lawmakers to explore the issue further.

“We need a new understanding of the system because most of this stuff is over 100 years old,” she said. “Back then it was about getting water out of there and putting it to economic use. That shouldn’t be the case anymore.”