By statute in China, Indonesia and Viet Nam, groundwater is defined as being in the public domain, and therefore the government is entitled to manage the resource. In Thailand, while there are no legal document specifying ownership, groundwater is widely recognised as a public good. In Sri Lanka and Japan, groundwater is regarded to be a private domain, and this fact constitutes one of the barriers against the government control of groundwater use in these cities, in particular in Sri Lanka, such as the enforcement of groundwater use permission/licensing system and the introduction of charging scheme to groundwater.