Waters Protection Ordinance
(WPO)

¹ In the space provided for wa­ters, only fixed in­stall­a­tions serving the pub­lic in­terest such as foot­paths and hik­ing trails, run-of-river power plants or bridges may be built. The au­thor­ity may au­thor­ise the fol­low­ing in­stall­a­tions provided there are no over­rid­ing in­terests to the con­trary:

a.

in densely built-up areas, in­stall­a­tions that meet zon­ing re­quire­ments;

a^bis.49

in­stall­a­tions that meet zon­ing re­quire­ments out­side densely built-up areas on in­di­vidu­al plots of ground that have not been built on with­in a series of sev­er­al plots of ground that have been built on;

b.

ag­ri­cul­tur­al and forestry tracked and gravel paths with a dis­tance of at least 3m from the shoreline of the wa­ters if to­po­graph­ic­ally lim­ited spa­tial con­di­tions per­tain;

c.

fixed parts of in­stall­a­tions that aid wa­ter with­draw­al or dis­charge;

d.⁵⁰

small in­stall­a­tions that serve the use of the wa­ters.⁵¹

² The con­tin­ued ex­ist­ence of in­stall­a­tions and per­man­ent crops in terms of Art­icle 22 para­graph 1 let­ters a–c, e and g–i of the Ag­ri­cul­tur­al Terms Or­din­ance of 7 Decem­ber 1998⁵² in the space provided for wa­ters that are law­fully con­struc­ted and useable as in­ten­ded is in prin­ciple pro­tec­ted.⁵³

³ No fer­til­isers and plant health products may be used in the space provided for wa­ters. In­di­vidu­al treat­ments of prob­lem plants are per­mit­ted out­side a 3-metre-wide strip along the bank where these can­not be con­trolled mech­an­ic­ally at a reas­on­able cost.

⁴ The space provided for wa­ters may be used for ag­ri­cul­tur­al pur­poses if it is used in ac­cord­ance with the re­quire­ments of the Dir­ect Pay­ments Or­din­ance of 23 Oc­to­ber 2013⁵⁴ as straw fields, hedgerows, field or ri­pari­an wood­land, ri­pari­an mead­ow, ex­tens­ively used mead­ow, ex­tens­ively used pas­ture ground or wooded pas­ture ground. These re­quire­ments also ap­ply to the use of areas out­side the ag­ri­cul­tur­al land in use.⁵⁵

^4bis If in the case of roads and paths with a base lay­er or rail­way lines that run along­side wa­ters the space provided for wa­ters on the land side ex­tends only a few metres bey­ond the trans­port in­fra­struc­ture, the au­thor­ity may au­thor­ise ex­cep­tions from the man­age­ment re­stric­tions in para­graphs 3 and 4 for the part on the land side provided no fer­til­isers or plant health products can enter the wa­ter.⁵⁶

⁵ Meas­ures against nat­ur­al erosion of the banks of a wa­ter­course are per­mit­ted only if re­quired for pro­tec­tion against flood­ing or to pre­vent an un­reas­on­able loss of ag­ri­cul­tur­al land.

⁶ The fol­low­ing do not ap­ply:

a.

para­graphs 1–5 to that part of the space provided for wa­ters that ex­clus­ively serves to guar­an­tee the use of the wa­ters;

b.

para­graphs 3 and 4 to the space provided for cul­ver­ted wa­ters.