Ticino Rivers and Lakes

Before Every Water Entry

• Call the municipality for current site access/restrictions and verify the exact basin with a competent guide.
• Check the FOEN Verzasca station or FOEN Maggia station, together with upstream forecasts, local warnings, dam signs and the guide's in-person flow assessment. Never adopt a public gauge value as a safe-diving cutoff.
• Confirm entry, exit, potential siphons and rock traps, shore observer, first-aid oxygen, communications and evacuation approach.
• Do not go under boulders, into undercuts or overhead features without separately verified technical competence and explicit legal access.
• Plan thermal protection and a recognized river-appropriate equipment configuration through the instructor. Do not assume conventional lake kit or unsupervised solo dives will suffice.

Breath-hold and Lakes

• Never freedive alone, hyperventilate or turn a scuba river pool into a depth-training zone. DAN recommends trained one-up-one-down supervision.
• For mountain lakes, verify local access, cold-water preparedness and altitude-specific dive-computer/decompression settings. DAN altitude guidance and post-dive ascent guidance apply to mountain road travel and flights.
• For Lake Maggiore bathing, respect boat traffic, local signs, facility hours and bathing-water advisories.

If the river rises, turns turbulent, carries debris, or an authority or guide says no, cancel the water activity without debate.

Call Swiss medical emergency dispatch at 144 or universal emergency 112. If rescue helicopter access is urgently needed in difficult terrain, Rega accepts calls at 1414 within Switzerland; dispatchers coordinate appropriate transport. Ente Ospedaliero Cantonale lists a 24-hour adult emergency department at Ospedale Regionale di Locarno, La Carita, and at Bellinzona San Giovanni. The specific hyperbaric chamber, capacity and transfer time for a decompression illness casualty were not verified by this research. Do not assume the nearest general emergency department has a chamber. Agree with the dive professional on emergency oxygen, location sharing, communication backup and a dispatch-directed recompression pathway before entry. Insurance should explicitly cover cold freshwater scuba, any altitude or specialist course and rescue/evacuation, as applicable.

These are freshwater ecosystems rather than marine parks. Observe local access signs, protected areas, fishing rules and any swimming prohibitions. Avoid disturbing trout or bullheads, lifting stones, trapping fish or leaving line and trash in the water. Swiss FOEN notes watercourse ecological pressures; visual transparency does not mean that all waters are pristine or safe to drink. Ticino bathing-water monitoring uses published test results and may discourage bathing when conditions deteriorate. For the unique high-altitude Piora lakes, follow marked hiking routes and do not assume the right to enter or dive in a lake just because it appears on a map. Commercial activity and drone permissions, if relevant, require separate verification. Fishing permits and protected fishing zones are not scuba access authorizations.