Clean water was and always is a precious resource. That a metropolis like Vienna has very good water was not always the case.
The oldest water pipeline in Vienna was built by the Romans in the 1st century AD. After the Roman period, the population supplied itself with the necessary water from streams and rivers or from groundwater wells.
Triggered by disasters such as major fires and epidemics, the first water pipelines in Vienna were built from the 16th century onward: a municipal one from Hernals (1525-1565) and one for the court from the Siebenbrunnenfeld (1562).
Due to the growth of the population – especially from the middle of the 17th century – well water was no longer sufficient for the drinking water supply, so new water pipelines had to be built. In the middle of the 18th century, a powerful pipeline from Ottakring (Liebhardsthal) was added.
With the invention of the steam engine, filtered Danube water could now also be pumped uphill, so that from 1841 the Kaiser-Ferdinands-Wasserleitung made possible a large-scale water supply for Vienna and its suburbs.