Waters Protection Ordinance
(WPO)

¹ When di­vid­ing their ter­rit­ory in­to wa­ter pro­tec­tion areas (Art. 19 WPA), the can­tons shall in­dic­ate those at par­tic­u­lar risk and the oth­er areas. Those de­scribed in An­nex 4 num­ber 11 as at par­tic­u­lar risk in­clude:

a.

wa­ter pro­tec­tion area A_u for the pro­tec­tion of ex­ploit­able un­der­ground wa­ters;

b.

wa­ter pro­tec­tion area A_o for the pro­tec­tion of wa­ter qual­ity of sur­face wa­ters if this is re­quired to guar­an­tee a spe­cif­ic use of a body of wa­ter;

c.

the area of con­tri­bu­tion Z_u in­ten­ded for the pro­tec­tion of wa­ter qual­ity at ex­ist­ing and planned ground­wa­ter wells serving the pub­lic in­terest if the wa­ter is pol­luted by sub­stances which are not suf­fi­ciently de­graded or re­tained, or if there is a genu­ine risk of pol­lu­tion by such sub­stances;

d.³⁰

the area of con­tri­bu­tion Z_o in­ten­ded for the pro­tec­tion of wa­ter qual­ity of sur­face wa­ters if wa­ter is pol­luted by run-off of pesti­cides or nu­tri­ents.

² They shall des­ig­nate ground­wa­ter pro­tec­tion zones (Art. 20 WPA) de­scribed in An­nex 4 num­ber 12 in or­der to pro­tect ground­wa­ter wells and ground­wa­ter re­charge in­stall­a­tions serving the pub­lic in­terest. They may des­ig­nate ground­wa­ter pro­tec­tion zones even for planned wells and re­charge in­stall­a­tions serving the pub­lic in­terest, the loc­a­tions of which and amount of with­draw­als from which are es­tab­lished.

³ They shall des­ig­nate the ground­wa­ter pro­tec­tion areas de­scribed in An­nex 4 num­ber 13 (Art. 21 WPA) in or­der to pro­tect the un­der­ground wa­ters planned for use.

⁴ They shall base their de­cisions on the des­ig­na­tion of wa­ter pro­tec­tion areas and ground­wa­ter pro­tec­tion zones and areas on ex­ist­ing hy­dro-geo­lo­gic­al find­ings. If these are not suf­fi­cient, they shall en­sure that the re­quired hy­dro-geo­lo­gic­al in­vest­ig­a­tions are con­duc­ted.