age of metternich
Well in Rome, there would be people that would illegally tap water by connecting into the aqueduct system. Every so often, there were Romans that were appointed to walk along the different aqueduct systems and check for illegal hook-ups. If one was found, the link was destroyed. If they could find who was responsible, they might be fined. You had to pay to connect to the water system, unless public fountains were used.

tremulus_light
I'm afraid that your best bet for a paper is to head to the library- you've almost certainly got a pretty good one nearby, and if you haven't, your school can probably hook you up with some good online databases of articles on the subject. We can help you with key search words though. The flooding that happened at the Nile influenced the Egyptians greatly. Their entire religion (of which the king was the head) bears hallmarks of the way Egyptians viewed the world because of this most important river's tendency to overflow it's borders. (Don't quote me on that unless you find it somewhere else- I study ancient Egypt, but haven't looked at this aspect in a while!) You might also look at how water was the deciding factor in whether or not civilization arose. Where there was water, cities could grow, where there wasn't, they didn't. Wikipedia can likely springboard you into more scholarly and reliable source material, as well.

T-Bone
don't forget the Yangtze and Yellow rivers in China, and the importance of the Ganges for India and the Danube for the Keltoi (Celts) You'd want to get into into its importance for transportation and trade, and how the need to move water inspired many of the engineering feats of Rome and the Mesopotamian cultures.

Hawkeye
Not sure about websites but hopefully this helps. Egypt's entire civilization revolved around the Nile River. The God status of the Pharaohs depended largely on their "ability" to make the Nile flood each year...which in turn led to the massive production of grain that allowed their culture to flourish for thousands of years. As for Rome....look into the Caesars who built huge public works projects involving water. The great baths and aquaducts and fountains. Note that wherever Rome conquered they immediately set about building aquaducts and baths. The baths were a large part of their social life....and the aquaducts allowed Roman populations to be (for that era) relatively free of water-borne illness like cholera and dysentary. This of course let them more efficiently and effectively rule their cities and provinces because they were dealing with less disease than less "civilized" cultures. As for Sumeria... sorry I can't help you with that one.

orestes_otm
This link may help you in regards to Mesopotamia