Book excerpt: Aiming to identify the most effective tools and water governance innovations, and the circumstances that foster their successful implementation in different contexts, this book examines some of the world's leading living laboratories of non-urban water law and governance, evaluating the success of different governance forms, legal designs and institutional prescriptions. Drawing on a rigorous empirical study of Australian water governance, it provides insights from Australia's world leading water law and governance system which it complements with comparative studies from regulatory bodies and governance innovations in the United States, Europe and New Zealand to provide timely insights which test theories, speak to key debates and make recommendations on an array of water, law and governance issues.