Federal Act
on the Protection of Waters
(Waters Protection Act, WPA)

¹The can­tons shall en­sure that over the long term no more wa­ter is with­drawn from ground­wa­ter re­sources than flows in­to them. In the short term, more wa­ter may be with­drawn un­less this im­pairs the qual­ity of ground­wa­ter or the ve­get­a­tion.

²If a ground­wa­ter re­source is im­paired as a res­ult of ex­cess­ive with­draw­al or through re­duced re­charge, the can­ton shall en­sure that the situ­ation is remedied as far as pos­sible, either through re­du­cing the rate of with­draw­al or by ar­ti­fi­cial re­charge or by un­der­ground stor­age of drink­ing wa­ter.

³Dif­fer­ent ground­wa­ter re­sources may not be con­nec­ted to each oth­er on a per­man­ent basis if such a con­nec­tion may im­pair the quant­ity or qual­ity of the ground­wa­ter.

⁴Stor­age volumes and flows of us­able ground­wa­ter re­sources may not be sub­stan­tially re­duced on a per­man­ent basis as a res­ult of new in­stall­a­tions of any kind.

⁵Low dams shall not sub­stan­tially im­pair the ground­wa­ter nor the ve­get­a­tion which de­pends on the ground­wa­ter level. The au­thor­ity may grant ex­cep­tions for ex­ist­ing in­stall­a­tions.

⁶Drain­age of a zone which res­ults in a lower­ing of the ground­wa­ter table over a large area shall be per­mit­ted only if ag­ri­cul­tur­al util­isa­tion can­not be en­sured in any oth­er way.