New Tool Highlights Pollution Risks for Canary Islands Beaches
A new tool called Vertidos Canarias, developed by biologist Romén Herrera, maps the locations of sewage discharges alongside environmental factors such as wind and currents. This allows residents to know which coastal areas may be affected by water pollution.
Canary Islands have long struggled with the problem of wastewater discharges, resulting in over 60 beaches currently closed to swimming. Tenerife is particularly hard hit, with 33 closures, while Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, La Palma, La Gomera, and El Hierro account for another 29 red flags and 110 yellow warnings. These figures reflect the widespread nature of the issue across the archipelago.
The Vertidos Canarias platform provides real-time information on each beach’s status, including the date of the last water sample and its results. It uses a traffic light system: red indicates nearby discharges pose a risk, yellow suggests potential dangers nearby, and green means no known discharges are close. However, being green does not guarantee the water is safe, as it only reflects current known discharges and conditions.
This tool differs from the NAyADE system, which offers real but not real-time water quality measurements. NAyADE tests are conducted up to 21 times a year, but results can take one to two days to process, creating a gap in timely information. Herrera’s model takes into account various factors to predict contamination flow from discharge points, displaying a heat map of potential areas of concern.
Vertidos Canarias also highlights authorised discharges missing from NAyADE’s database. Notably, not all bathing areas in the Canary Islands are included in NAyADE’s census, creating blind spots in monitoring. As a result, a discharge event can occur unrecorded between official assessments.
Recent closures due to contamination underscore the ongoing problem, with Playa Jardín in Puerto de la Cruz experiencing intermittent access issues since August. Other recent incidents include a 24-hour closure of Bajamar beach in La Laguna and a temporary closure of Playa Blanca on Lanzarote following a sewage spill caused by a pumping station malfunction.
These examples illustrate that water pollution is a persistent challenge across the region, necessitating a combination of health inspections and predictive tools like Vertidos Canarias to effectively manage the risk.
