There were some alternatives presented but not accepted. In the history of warfare, terrain set boundaries because the defenders had substantial advantage over attackers. I own this side of the river, you own that one. But from an ecological policy standpoint, it’s a disaster. Neither of us own the river, but if I dump shit into it and you have a port at the mouth, then my problems become your problems.

The alternative proposal was to divide government along watershed boundaries. Spain and France are still divided by the Pyrenees, because ridge lines are the same boundaries on both maps. But the Rhine and the Rhone say that France is divided from Germany, Italy, and Benelux all wrong:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_watershed#/media/File...

The river would instead become the middle of a territory, not the edges. My hamlet “owns” the valley it sits in. The county owns the tributary that flows past my hamlet and into another tributary. The state owns the tributary all the way to the Rhone, our nation or a union owns the entire Rhone, and a regional group oversees the Mediterranean, while the UN oversees the oceans in general, when regions don’t agree with themselves or among each other.

Anyone who muddies our water is in a direct chain of accountability to everyone down stream.

Logistically this is a nightmare. We’ve wiped out any cultures who might have worked this way, and those that remain won’t move political boundaries except under extreme duress, except to expand them (see point 1). But it does have a very Conway’s Law feel to it.

I was more thinking of the mutualist's idea of land ownership, I don't think it would be any more violent than the current system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_(economic_theory)#Us...

Basically you can only "own" land if you personally actually use it, not just rent it (or do nothing with it).