New bathing waters directive

On 15 February 2006, the European Parliament approved a new Bathing Water Directive (2006/7/EC) repealing the former Directive 76/160/EEC.

The main objective of this new directive continues to be, as was that of the pervious Directive, to protect the health of bathers, but it places greater emphasis on the management measures necessary to reduce risks, whilst also improving and standardising public information systems.

Main sections

  • Prioritising the protection of bather's health, making it obligatory to adopt management measures to reduce pollution-related risks.
  • Creating a profile of each bathing area, identifying all potential sources of pollution and their effects.
  • Increasing and improving the information provided to users by means of signals in the bathing areas and online information, so that they may decide where and when to bathe.
  • Arranging emergency plans for exceptional circumstances.
  • Possibility of disregarding samples (thereby improving the bathing area classification) providing that pollution prediction systems and good management measures are being applied.

The New Directive also modifies and simplifies the bacteriological pollution indicators, updates the analytical methods for measuring these indicators, sets more demanding standards and defines a new bathing water classification based on the analytical results of the samples for the past 4 bathing seasons.

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Entering into force

Directive 2006/7/EC came into force on 24 March 2006 and currently the Spanish Ministry for Health and Consumption is drawing up its transfer to Spanish legislation by means of a Royal Decree.

This Directive will be applicable as of the 2008 bathing season and by then the bathing area profile will have to be completed and the new indicator parameters analysed.

Documents of interest

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Actions taken by the Barcelona City Council

As of the 2008 bathing season, the new Directive will render it mandatory for all competent authorities –particularly the Catalan Water Agency (ACA) and the Councils– to make significant changes in order to adapt to the new requirements.

The Barcelona City Council has been working on getting ready for this date and, amongst other measures being undertaken, highlights the following:

  • Participation in meetings and work groups organised by the ACA aimed at putting the New Bathing Water Directive into practice in a coordinated manner.
  • Drawing up and setting into operation of protocols of action and emergency plans to be implemented in the event of pollution in the bathing areas of the coast of Barcelona, and coordination with the Special Emergency Plan for accidental contamination of Marine Waters in Catalonia (CAMCAT).
  • Development of an online communication system and information panels on the condition of the bathing waters along the Barcelona coast, disclosing information on water quality, sea and sand conditions, or the presence of jellyfish.
  • Implementation of a pioneering mechanism for predicting the bacteriological quality of bathing waters based on a system that uses realtime sensors and models (COWAMA).
  • Ongoing improvement of the city's sewage system by building and taking charge of the advanced management of retention tanks (more than 500,000 m3 equivalent to approximately 200 Olympic swimming pools), thereby significantly reducing the dumping of sewage into Barcelona's coastal waters.

COWAMA Project

The COWAMA (Coastal Water Management) Project consists of creating a decision-making system for quality management of bathing waters, with two main objectives:

  • To develop and implement a planning and integrated management system of the urban water system including sewage, water treatment and the coastal receiving medium, that permits a profile of the bathing waters to be defined as required by the new Bathing Water Directive, and also to plan the necessary infrastructural actions to reduce beach pollution.
  • To develop and implement a system for predicting and alerting of pollution in the coastal receiving medium in order to inform bathers of the predicted quality of the water.

The system needs realtime data (rain gauges, level sensors in the sewer systems, currents, etc.) and forecast data (wind, sunshine, currents, etc.) to feed a series of sewer, river, water treatment and marine models in order to obtain the forecast quality in the bathing areas.

A preliminary pilot system is ready to enter into operation during the 2007 bathing season on an experimental basis and the full system will be implemented by the 2008 bathing season.

Links of interest

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