Follow your curiosity

What discovery has been shared with you?

FACTREE gives you something interesting to discover every day — and something worth talking about together.

Start with one fact. Explore it, go deeper, then follow whichever branch catches your imagination.

Choose subjects for a surprise

Exploring any topic

Begin your discovery

Your next discovery is one click away.

Choose one or more subjects above, or leave Any Topic selected and let curiosity decide.

Law

The Public Trust Doctrine Applied to Groundwater

Quick fact

In 2021, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that the public trust doctrine applies to all groundwater, making the state a trustee obligated to protect it for public uses, even when private wells are involved.

Why this is interesting

You own the land above an aquifer—so you own the water below it, right? In some jurisdictions, that assumption is being overturned by a doctrine nearly two thousand years old.