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'Water Watch - Eye on the Earth', an internet site developed by the European Environment Agency, will allow holidaymakers to freely verify whether the beaches they plan to bathe at are clean or polluted.
The European Parliament approved last June the draft directive on environmental quality standards for water that now should be translated into national laws with the final aim of limiting the presence in European bathing water of 41 chemical dangerous substances, such as lead, mercury, benzene and nickel (EurActiv 18/06/08).
These provisions on bathing water quality are part of a wider EU water policy covering areas as diverse as flood management, chemicals in water, clean drinking water, groundwater protection and urban waste water. The EU Water Framework Directive (WFD
), adopted in 2000, was introduced to streamline the EU’s large body of water legislation into one overarching strategy (see our Links Dossier).
As for bathing water, the European Environment Agency has already put in place a monitoring system called WISE
(Water Information System for Europe) that provides detailed information on the quality of water. However, it is aimed more at experts than at the general public.
The website, launched today (30 July), provides up-to-date information on the quality of bathing water of thousands of beaches in Europe, with an easy 'traffic-light' system displaying a red light for polluted waters, a green light for clean ones and a yellow light for areas not sufficiently monitored.
The service, available on www.eyeonearth.eu
, also allows users to leave their comments about the quality of bathing waters of the resorts they visited, thanks to an interactive Web 2.0 application.
The mapping technology was offered freely by Microsoft in a charm offensive towards the European Union institutions where its reputation is tainted by ongoing competition cases (EurActiv 28/02/08).
However, it could also be supplied by competitors in the future provided that it does not involve extra costs for the agency, a spokesperson from the EEA told EurActiv. The service has a potential to attract several users and could raise the interest of Google Earth or other providers of satellite imagery and digital maps.
Water Watch is in fact the first step of a five-year project that will also provide easy-to-access information to the general public about the quality of soil, air and ozone. The EEA hopes the new tools will prompt citizens to change their personal behaviour and trigger actions from their administrations.
However, the full reliability of the information cannot be guaranteed as it relies exclusively on data provided by national authorities. In its 2007 report on bathing water quality, the European Commission said it suspects member states of taking some bathing sites off the EU monitoring list in order to cover up pollution problems (EurActiv 1/06/07).
Jacqueline McGlade, Executive Director of the European Environment Agency, said: “As environmental problems become more evident and affect the lives of ordinary individuals, it is vitally important that we can access relevant and timely information on the impact of environmental change”.
“With Eye on Earth, the EEA and Microsoft plan to bring complex strands of information together into a single, simple to use and easy to understand application, so as more data and user findings are posted on the portal we can see how climate change affects the way we live, and how the way we live affects the environment”.
Geoffrey Lipman, spokesperson for the UN World Tourism Organisation commented: “Eye on Earth delivers the kinds of information that the public can really understand. Using the application, people can now find out what is happening on the beach near them or the one they plan to visit on holiday”.
Rob Bernard, chief environmental strategist at Microsoft, said: “Eye on Earth is a great example of how technology has the power to help governments, business and individuals understand what is happening to our environment. By combining environmental data with mapping technologies, it is possible for people to see where changes are happening. Eye on Earth provides people with information which has historically been difficult to find”.
(17 July 2006) [FR]
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(23 October 2000) [FR]
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