Abstract
Many countries including EU Member States (EUMS) and the United States (U.S.) regularly monitor the microbial quality of bathing water to protect public health. This study comprehensively evaluates the EU bathing water directive (BWD) and the U.S. recreational water quality criteria (RWQC) as regulatory frameworks for monitoring microbial quality of bathing water. The major differences between these two regulatory frameworks are the provision of bathing water profiles, classification of bathing sites based on the pollution level, variations in the sampling frequency, accepted probable illness risk, epidemiological studies conducted during the development of guideline values, and monitoring methods. There are also similarities between the two approaches given that both enumerate viable fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) as an index of the potential risk to human health in bathing water and accept such risk up to a certain level. However, enumeration of FIB using methods outlined within these current regulatory frameworks does not consider the source of contamination nor variation in inactivation rates of enteric microbes in different ecological contexts, which is dependent on factors such as temperature, solar radiation, and salinity in various climatic regions within their geographical areas. A comprehensive “tool-box approach”, i.e., coupling of FIB and viral pathogen indicators with microbial source tracking for regulatory purposes, offers potential for delivering improved understanding to better protect the health of bathers.
Highlights
Visiting bathing sites located around lakes, rivers, estuaries, and coastal areas are major summertime recreational activities and provide a range of physical and psychological health benefits [1]
There are parallels in terms of laboratory methods and deployment of regulatory sampling and reporting between the bathing water directive (BWD) and recreational water quality criteria (RWQC), there are some clear differences in these two regulatory frameworks
The U.S Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) (2007) describes a “Tool-BoxApproach” for bathing water quality monitoring [66]. This approach keeps all possible materials and methods as tools (i.e., fecal indicator bacteria (FIB), microbial source tracking (MST) tools, viral indicators, protozoan indicators, and pathogen indicators) in a virtual box and uses the most appropriate material and methods for a specific bathing site at a particular time. Using this approach, monitoring of bathing water quality can begin by characterizing the FIB counts with the current approach and source of contamination with MST markers [21,60]
Summary
Visiting bathing sites located around lakes, rivers, estuaries, and coastal areas are major summertime recreational activities and provide a range of physical and psychological health benefits [1] Such activities make a large contribution to revenue collection and employment generation through coastal tourism. The microbial contamination of bathing sites from various sources such as sewage effluents, agricultural runoff, and accidental releases from municipal sewage sources poses a serious public health risk and jeopardizes the health and economic benefits associated with bathing [3,4] Many countries such as European Union Member States (EUMS), other European countries e.g., the United Kingdom (U.K.), the United States (U.S.), Australia, and Canada are regulating the microbial contamination of recreational and bathing waters. This study presents future perspectives of bathing water quality management based on existing scientific evidence and knowledge
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
