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

¹The can­tons shall di­vide their ter­rit­ory in­to wa­ter pro­tec­tion areas ac­cord­ing to the risks of pol­lu­tion to which sur­face and un­der­ground wa­ters are sub­ject. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall en­act the re­quired reg­u­la­tions.

²In areas which are par­tic­u­larly vul­ner­able, the con­struc­tion and con­ver­sion of build­ings and in­stall­a­tions as well as op­er­a­tions such as ex­cav­a­tions, earth­works and sim­il­ar works may take place only provided that a can­ton­al per­mit has been gran­ted if they may pose a risk to the wa­ters.²⁰