BMT Cordah has been awarded a contract by the Environment Agency (EA) to develop a tool for forecasting bathing water quality. The development, which BMT Cordah will work on with MarineTech South, is funded under the Interreg IIIB Atlantic Area Programme as part of the Improving Coastal and Recreational Waters (ICREW) project. The aim of ICREW is to develop the contribution of recreational waters to sustainable economic prosperity and a better quality of life in the Atlantic Area, by reducing pollution and improving the quality of recreational waters.
The project involves organisations in five Atlantic Area European Countries: UK, France, Portugal, Spain and Ireland, and has a total project budget of over 8 million euros.
The EA has contracted BMT Cordah to develop a software tool to predict the probable onset and duration of poor bathing water quality within a time-frame which allows effective beach management actions to be taken.
The proposed modelling information system will specialise in the prediction of bathing water quality using environmental geospatial information and GIS as an interface for user-friendly and operational water quality assessments. The information system will be built with two main numerical modules which will dynamically access on-line and static databases, enabling real-time or “what-if” modelling of risk levels in the coastal region of interest. The system will be designed to be used across Europe by beach managers to better inform the public using recreational waters.
For more information on the ICREW project go to the website: www.icrew.info