Bathing Water Quality Monitoring Practices in Europe and the United States

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.

Bathing water quality analysis, management and policy: an integrated assessment for Ireland

“…Table 1 provides an overview of the most relevant publications and documents, with their focus, objectives and possible implications for consideration. The international literature has studied similar problems and has tried to improve policy around management of BS: Tiwari et al (2021) assessed and compared Bathing Water Quality Monitoring Practices in Europe and the United States. The cost burden of the BS management for small communities is relatively high, and also monitoring the quality of BS can result in significant costs for countries with extensive coastlines, so Bonamano et al (2021) introduced a predictive index based on E. coli 1) reflect the country's efforts towards a better understanding of the water quality of coastal systems and ways to preserve/improve it.…”

Inland Reservoir Water Quality Inversion and Eutrophication Evaluation Using BP Neural Network and Remote Sensing Imagery: A Case Study of Dashahe Reservoir

“…The water quality of the reservoir reached the surface water Class II water standard in 2017. The reservoir has experienced blooms of cyanobacteria due to a large amount of agricultural wastewater and municipal sewage discharged into the tributaries, which may cause water and public health risks due to waterborne pathogens [53,55].…”

Molecular Methods for Pathogenic Bacteria Detection and Recent Advances in Wastewater Analysis

“…The traditional detection method of pathogenic bacteria mainly relies on microbial culturing. Culture-based methods are low-cost, easy to operate, and highly standardized and thus are broadly used for the regulatory purposes of pathogenic bacteria monitoring such as enumerating FIB in bathing water [4]. However, the main limitations of these methods are the lack of differentiation between the target and other non-target endogenous microorganisms of the same samples, false negative/positive results, time and labor-consuming procedures, and the inability to detect viable but nonculturable (VBNC) cells [5].…”

“…This affects the quantification accuracy of targets and underestimates the prevalence of pathogens in the human community. In addition, VBNC can become viable and may cause disease and increase the public health risk [4]. Therefore, as a rapid analyzing tool with high accuracy and specificity, molecular methods have quickly become the mainstream detection technique of pathogenic bacteria.…”