1952-1970

In 1952 Professor Otto Jaag was appointed as Director of Eawag. He lectured at the ETH Zurich on hydrobiology and limnology as well as on special botany, and he showed an early and consistent commitment to establishing water protection legislation. At Eawag Jaag set up a Limnology department and simultaneously built up the advisory and educational activities, especially for civil engineers. In 1955 he expanded the institute to include a Waste Disposal Research department as a consequence of the clear connections between the waste disposal methods used at that time and the pollution of the waterways and ground water. From the 60s onwards Eawag increasingly concentrated on its remit as a research centre. Pioneering studies were carried out on the overfertilisation of lakes, on the self-cleaning powers of waterways, and on the measurement of biological treatment plants. In 1960 the natural scientific areas were enhanced when Eawag took over the “Hydrobiological Laboratory” in Kastanienbaum on Lake Lucerne from the Naturforschende Gesellschaft Luzern (Lucerne Society of Natural Science). Thanks to his network of contacts, Director Jaag was able to ensure the necessary funding for the renovation, extension and modern facilities of this laboratory, which also became the site of the new Fishery Sciences department in 1969. In 1970 Eawag, until then an institute of the ETH Zurich became an affiliated institute within the ETH system, and in the same year, just a few months after Jaag retired, it moved into its new premises in Dübendorf.

Today, he has a street in Dübendorf named after him. The Otto Jaag Water Protection Prize is awarded annually by the ETH Zurich for outstanding dissertations and theses in the field of water protection and hydrology.