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Box 5: Management of large bathing waters in Barcelona (Spain)

Barcelona has a population of 1.6 million inhabitants, with 1.5 million more in the wider metropolitan area. The seafront of the city has been transformed, and it is today a key tourist site, with over 10 km of beaches, visited by over three million tourists each year. Due to its high population density and hilly terrain, Barcelona’s bathing waters are exposed to sewer systems overflows. These overflows cause episodes of short-term water contamination which may affect the quality of bathing waters. As is common in Mediterranean climates, heavy rain events are often concentrated in very few days with high intensities.

Up to the early 1990s, Barcelona faced flooding problems and overflows, causing environmental pollution. In 2006, an ambitious plan was proposed, with improved environmental and public wellbeing objectives: to reduce the combined sewage outflows so that the number of hours that the bathing waters are not allowed for bathing is reduced.

Information systems have been developed for both internal coordination and general public information. The public can access bathing information (bathing water quality predictions, weather forecast, presence of jellyfish etc.) using electronic panels at the beach and on public web pages. A coordination protocol is activated by the detention of an overflow, which can be triggered by tele-controlled sensors, camera images or direct observations at the beach. The protocol describes different responsibilities so that the responsible agent can diagnose the outflow and take correction measures for the immediate resolution of the problem