With climate change causing sea temperatures to rise, bathing may become less safe. Bacteria thrive in these warmer waters. Sewage overflows and surface runoff from agriculture may bring nutrients and pathogens into the coastal waters. Current water quality monitoring programs are based on fortnightly sampling and may miss important polluting events.

Researchers at Deltares are developing an early warning system to inform people about the real time quality of coastal bathing water.

What are we doing?

The team is developing more advanced predictive models of the bacteria than the existing ones. These advanced models combine lab results with mathematics, simulating data for faecal bacteria.

These models can be used to create a real-time forecasting platform to give early warnings of unsafe bathing water. Longer-term, by applying climate scenarios, these models can be used to predict the impact of climate change and higher sea temperatures on the pathogen risk: essential health information for swimmers and any other recreational water users.

Timeline

The faecal model will be tested in Katwijk in the Netherlands.

The research team is:

Why is this important?

This case study will support practical health risk prevention.

The current models for faecal contamination of coastal waters are incomplete. They don’t combine the impact of nutrient conditions with temperature, sediment and overflow. By delivering more advanced models, we can support local authorities, consultancy companies and other researchers.

Accurate forecasting will provide early warning of bacterial presence, which is great news for recreational water users such as swimmers.