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Box 6: Birds impacting the quality of bathing water (Czechia)

Brušperk is a water tank built for flood protection in the 1960s in the vicinity of Ostrava, Czechia. It is nowadays used mainly for bathing and fishing. Between 2012 and 2015, the quality of this bathing water was impaired largely due to presence of large quantities of water birds fed by the beach visitors, as well as pollution from the farm located near the tank. In the 2012 season, bathing was temporarily prohibited due to microbial pollution caused by the presence of large quantities of water birds, which were overfed at the shore by bathing water visitors. After intervention from local authorities, the feed was cleaned from the banks of the reservoir and moved to the surrounding water bodies – people were kindly requested to feed the birds at different location which is not used by bathers. The microbiological quality of the bathing water is now ‘excellent’