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

The pur­pose of this Act is to pro­tect wa­ters against harm­ful ef­fects. In par­tic­u­lar it aims:

a.

to pre­serve the health of people, an­im­als and plants;

b.

to guar­an­tee the sup­ply and eco­nom­ic use of drink­ing wa­ter and wa­ter re­quired for oth­er pur­poses;

c.

to pre­serve the nat­ur­al hab­it­ats of in­di­gen­ous fauna and flora;

d.

to pre­serve wa­ters suit­able as a hab­it­at for fish;

e.

to pre­serve wa­ters as an ele­ment of the land­scape;

f.

to en­sure the ir­rig­a­tion of ag­ri­cul­tur­al land;

g.

to per­mit the use of wa­ters for leis­ure pur­poses;

h.

to en­sure the nat­ur­al func­tion­ing of the hy­dro­lo­gic­al cycle.