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accretion

Accretion from natural causes (also referred to as alluvion) adds soil, sand, and other types of earth to the part of a person’s property that borders water. While this occurs very slowly, a piece of property may grow a lot over time and increase its value. Any addition to one’s property by accretion becomes that person’s legal property. This is in contrast with avulsion, where the original owner of the moved earth continues to own it.

alluvion

Alluvion is the slow accretion or erosion of soil, sand, and other parts of land. Water usually causes alluvion by moving the shoreline over time. In some areas located besides rivers and oceans, land can continuously change its shape through the daily movement of water. If land becomes eroded, the owner of the property where the erosion occurred loses right to any removed part of the property.

avulsion

Avulsion refers to water quickly submerging land or moving land to another location. In most situations under state property law, land moved by avulsion continues to be the property of the owner of where the land originally was located. For example, a major hurricane may cause chunks of land to be dislodged from a person’s land beside a river, and in this case, the person would continue to own the dislodged land. The key aspect of avulsion is its rapid change.

international environmental law

International environmental law (sometimes international ecological law) is a field of international law regulating the behavior of states and international organizations concerning the environment. See: Phillipe Sands, et al, Principles of International Environmental Law (4th ed., Cambridge, 2018). Core global regulation domains include the world's oceans and fisheries management, the polar ice caps, and the regulation of carbon and other particulate emiss

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natural resources

Natural resources, as defined in the Code of Federal Regulations (40 C.F.R.), encompass land, fish, wildlife, biota, air, water, ground water, drinking water supplies, and other such resources belonging to, managed by, held in trust by, appertaining to, or otherwise controlled by the United States, any state or local government, or any foreign government.

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