The Northland Regional Council is changing the way it
delivers water quality results at popular summer beach and
freshwater swim spots.
Ricky Eyre, the council’s
Coastal and Water Quality Field Operations Manager says for
many years the council has collected weekly water quality
samples at popular swim sites throughout Northland over
summer. Results have been delivered to the public through
various means, including online through the council website
and in more recent years the LAWA website.
“As well as
being very labour intensive, due to the time limitations of
sample analysis, management options are always retrospective
and there is no consideration of changes in environmental
conditions like rainy weather which can impact water
quality.”
In a bid to improve the situation, the
council has been working over recent months to model
recreational bathing water quality using a wealth of water
quality data it has collected over the years.
The
result is a system that establishes a relationship between
historical results with environmental drivers (rainfall) to
provide ‘real-time and near-future swimability
predictions’.
Mr Eyre says the information on 50
coastal and 20 freshwater sites popular with swimmers and
other recreational water users over the warmer months will
be able to be presented year-round via the ‘Safeswim’
website www.safeswim.org.nz
from December. The shift to Safeswim comes after six popular
Northland sites were added to it in a low-key trial last
summer.
Results will also be posted on the ‘Can I
Swim Here?’ section on the national environmental
reporting website LAWA – www.lawa.org.nz
“Among
a host of potential benefits are improved knowledge of water
quality at swimming sites, improving public understanding of
potential health risks and providing real-time/forecasted
water quality year-round.” “Safeswim also provides
information on tides, physical hazards and lifeguard
patrols, where appropriate, providing a ‘one-stop shop’
for users to make informed decisions on where to swim before
heading off.”
Mr Eyre says despite the move to
Safeswim, the regional council will continue to take water
samples throughout the year to ‘ground truth’ the model
and new monitoring sites will be added to the Safeswim
platform over the next year.
Mr Eyre says the system
uses a series of pins/droplets to illustrate the
advisability of swimming and other contact with water. He
says while the regional council does not have the authority
to close beaches or freshwater sites to swimmers, the
information is provided for users to make informed
decisions.
Water quality predicted to meet national
guidelines is marked with a green water droplet indicating a
low risk of illness from swimming.
When water quality
is predicted to exceed national guidelines, Safeswim will
display a red water droplet indicating a high risk of
illness from swimming.
“Essentially it means that
levels of bacteria indicate that more than 1 in 50 people
are likely to become ill after putting their head
underwater.”
Mr Eyre says for most healthy people
water that meets national guidelines will pose a minimal
level of risk. “However, water below the guideline values
may pose a potential health risk to high-risk user groups
such as the very young, the elderly and those with impaired
immune systems.”
Finally a black pin on Safeswim
indicates that the swimspot has been affected by a confirmed
wastewater overflow and authorities ‘strongly advise’
against swimming as the risk is higher than
normal.
Answers to frequently asked questions on
Safeswim can be found at www.nrc.govt.nz/swimmingfaqs
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