Groundwater accounts for more than 80 % of Switzerland’s drinking water. It flows in underground cavities ranging in size from microscopic to vast, and emerges naturally on the surface in the form of springs. It is artificially extracted from the underground with the aid of pumps.
Hydrogeology encompasses all aspects of groundwater, including all factors that have an influence on it. Responsibility for locating, monitoring and protecting groundwater in Switzerland is shared between swisstopo and the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN).
swisstopo provides the necessary information about the underground, which the FOEN takes as the basis for producing hydrogeological maps of Switzerland with the data it obtains from its monitoring network. These maps depict the distribution and hydrogeological properties of aquifers and thus provide essential information for the management and protection of this resource.
The Swiss Geological Survey is developing 3D geological models, which will enable to depict and study Switzerland’s hydrogeological properties even more accurately in the future.