Up to the present day Basel’s numerous wells bear witness to the importance of water for sustaining life. In the early days there were even more of them. Thus the Italian humanist Enea Silvio Piccolomini praised Basel’s plentiful supply of water in the 15th century: 'barely countable they were, the abundant wells with their clear, delicious water.' This changed significantly in the 19th century when the population multiplied within a short period of time. Water became dirty and scarce.

Since then the city had been occupied for years with providing the people with enough drinking water. Supply pipes from the Jura Mountains proved unreliable and costly, and despite newly developed regional groundwater resources, dramatic supply bottlenecks occurred until far into the 20th century. Only since it started to trickle off pre-filtered water from the Rhine in the Hardwald and in the Langen Erlen has Basel finally ensured sufficient groundwater reserves.