Water is not exactly a scarce commodity in Switzerland. Even though it just makes up a four thousandth of Europe's area, Switzerland holds 6% of Europe's fresh water supplies, 262 billion m^3 in total. If this volume of water was equally spread over the country, Switzerland would lie 6m / 20ft under water.

Not surprsingly Switzerland is richly blessed with rainfall, as the damp air from the Atlantic and Mediterranean builds up over the Alps. Around 60 billion m^3 of water falls from the skies every year - 20 times more than the population needs for drinking and other uses.