Why 151 municipalities are rationing water in a country that has it

On 22 June, residents of five villages in the canton of Fribourg received the same instruction: cut water consumption. The bans covered filling swimming pools, watering gardens and washing vehicles and terraces.

By the end of July the situation had worsened across the country. More than 194 villages and towns had asked residents to save water. At least 151 municipalities, according to a count made on 24 July, had introduced outright bans, with fines reaching 2,000 francs in some cases.

The restrictions vary considerably. In Coldrerio, in Ticino, even-numbered houses may water flower beds on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, odd-numbered ones on the other days. Some municipalities allow watering by hand but ban the hose, with fines of up to 1,000 francs. Municipalities under the same weather conditions impose nothing at all and simply ask residents to avoid waste.

Nobody keeps account of these measures. The cantons manage water distribution, but municipalities set their own rules, and few cantons know which ones have decided anything.

Fribourg is an exception: it requires notification and publishes the data on a map. This summer 40% of the canton's municipalities issued recommendations or restrictions. "We do not know the precise reasons behind these appeals," said Julie Boillat, a hydrogeologist at the cantonal environment office. France, by contrast, has VigiEau, a national register updated in real time.

To reconstruct the Swiss picture, the websites of 2,110 municipalities had to be analysed by hand, one announcement at a time.

Three causes behind identical bans

The first is genuine scarcity. During drought, springs that depend on local catchments run down quickly, and flow can fall within days. In Rossinière, an Alpine village in Vaud, the watering ban came after the springs dried up, with a warning that brief storms would not be enough to refill them.

The second is economic. Pfungen, twenty kilometres from Zurich, draws partly on its own springs and partly on drinking water bought from Winterthur under fixed-volume contracts. Exceeding the agreed quantity multiplies the price fivefold. Because consumption tariffs are set in advance, the municipality cannot pass the difference on to residents and carries it in its own budget. Before reaching the limit it asked residents to stop watering lawns, avoid washing cars and take shorter showers. The appeal worked and the ceiling was not exceeded.

According to estimates by the Swiss Gas and Water Industry Association, around 90% of water utilities can buy water from neighbouring municipalities through interconnections built over the decades. The system is flexible, but two villages under the same climate and drawing on the same aquifer may behave differently depending on contracts and available pipework.

The third cause is infrastructural. On warm evenings, when everyone showers and waters at the same time, a network sized for normal demand can simply run empty.

The Confederation assesses the situation and recommends restrictions, but it can issue ordinances only in the event of severe shortage, that is when the cantons can no longer guarantee at least four litres of drinking water per person per day.

One instrument remains unused. Utilities could raise tariffs during periods of scarcity, provided the mechanism is set out in advance in their regulations. Several French cities do so, among them Toulouse. In Switzerland no utility applies it, partly because water costs 2.30 francs per thousand litres and very steep increases would be needed to change behaviour.

Parliament has commissioned a national water strategy, due by the end of 2027. Signals from the Federal Office for the Environment nonetheless point to a limited scope, since cantonal and municipal responsibilities will remain unchanged.

The context explains the urgency. Between April and June 2026 rainfall reached only 56% of the climatological average for the 1991-2020 period, according to MeteoSwiss. That is the lowest value since 1901, level with 1976.