Beachgoers in the Canary Islands now have a new way to check the latest available water-quality information before deciding where to swim.

A Canary Islands biologist has created Vertidos Canarias, an online platform designed to make information about bathing-water quality and coastal discharges much easier for the public to understand.

The website was developed by biologist Romén Herrera and combines information from several public sources into a single interactive platform.

For individual beaches, users can see the date and result of the latest available official water sample, including whether the water was classified as suitable for bathing.

The platform also displays recorded levels of Escherichia coli (E. coli) and intestinal enterococci, two microbiological indicators used when assessing bathing-water quality.

That could make the service particularly useful for residents and tourists following reports of contamination or sewage discharges around parts of the Canary Islands coastline.

Official results and daily estimates are different

There is, however, an important distinction for anyone using the service.

The laboratory bathing-water results displayed by the platform are based on public information from NÁYADE, Spain's National Bathing Water Information System.

Those results relate to samples that have actually been collected and analysed.

Vertidos Canarias then supplements the official information with other public datasets and modelling, including information about registered discharges and environmental conditions.

The platform can therefore provide an estimated daily exposure to discharges, taking factors such as weather conditions into account.

That estimate should not be confused with a new laboratory analysis conducted that day.

In other words, the website can help users make sense of the latest available information, but its predictive indicators are not themselves an official declaration that a beach is open, closed, safe or unsafe for bathing.

Check the website here: https://vertidoscanarias.org/

Website is only an indicator

Official beach closures and public-health restrictions remain the responsibility of the relevant authorities.

It comes at a particularly relevant time following several high-profile incidents involving water-quality concerns and temporary beach restrictions across the islands.

Beachgoers should still follow any signs, flags, barriers or instructions issued by lifeguards, Local Police, councils or public-health authorities at the beach itself.

If an authority has formally closed a beach or prohibited bathing, information displayed on a third-party website should never be used to override that restriction.

Used alongside official warnings, however, the new platform provides residents and millions of annual visitors with another practical way to understand what's happening in the waters around the Canary Islands.