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Beach bathing water quality monitoring
Environment Southland monitors 13 marine bathing and six freshwater sites weekly for microbiological water quality
between December and March. This allows the health authorities to notify the public of any potential risks. For the
weekly sampling results a traffic light approach is used to inform the public whether the water quality of a site
is suitable for swimming and other water-based recreational activity.
Environment Southland uses two ways of assessing and advising the water quality risks to bathing. These are:
- by regular monitoring of bathing water quality (the latest results are shown in the map to the right);
- by incorporating long term water data and catchment use to give an overall Suitability for Recreation Grading.
Suitability for Recreation Grades
As well as measuring bacteria levels, we allocate a grade to beaches according to the suitability of the water for
recreation (Suitability for Recreation Grade, SFRG). The grades are based on faecal contamination risk factors
within the catchment (e.g. intensive agricultural use in immediate catchment), and levels of indicator bacteria,
based on data that has been collected over a number of years. This grade gives an overview on how safe it is to
swim in a particular location. Beaches are graded as: Very Good, Good, Fair, Poor, Very Poor. The risk of becoming
sick from swimming at a beach increases as the beach grading shifts from Very Good to Very Poor.
View Southland Suitability for Recreation Grades here.