Water rights have been finacialized for thousands of years. Qanats, which are underground sort of canals (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat) were built in Persia to distribute water to agriculture and incentivized by government

"It was an Achaemenid ruling that in case someone succeeded in constructing a qanat and bringing groundwater to the surface in order to cultivate land, or in renovating an abandoned qanat, the tax he was supposed to pay the government would be waived not only for him but also for his successors for up to 5 generations"