Chennai: The beachgoers in the city can get to know whether it is safe to enter the sea and get their feet wet in main beaches including Marina, Elliot's, Kottivakkam and Kovalam beaches by just swiping their mobile screen.
National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR), a new centre for excellence in coastal research, will launch the water quality mobile app called Clean Coast to disseminate information on the coastal beach water quality of Chennai coast on Friday.
The app will provide a five-day forecast of sea surface temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, nutrients and faecal indicator bacteria for major beaches of Chennai coast.
“It will give an advisory on the water quality like the quantity of the bacteria (Coliforms) in the beach water, the quality of water is good, bad or worse and whether it is safe to enter into the water or not,” said Pravakar Mishra, Scientist -F, Integrated Coastal and Marine Area Management Project Directorate (ICMAM PD), Chennai.
The scientists are observing the coastal water quality and sediment parameters at 36 locations along the 50 km stretch from Ennore to Kovalam in Chennai for last four years. Based on the data collected in the past, the scientists have come up with the month wise data trend.
“We will forecast the quality of the water based on our data trend. We are planning to deploy buoys off the Chennai coast to collect the live data in a month or two. After that, we can give the live update to the beachgoers on water quality,” he said.
M. Rajeevan, secretary to the Government of India, ministry of earth sciences, will launch the app and unveil the National Centre for Coastal Research. M.V. Ramana Murthy, director of the centre, will also present at the event.
In the initial stage, the app will provide details of Chennai coast and it will be expanded to the entire country in the future. The sources of pollution are mainly from north Chennai through thermal power plants, Ennore port activities, untreated industrial effluents and sewage water through Cooum, Adyar rivers and Ennore creek and Buckingham canal.
It has resulted in nutrient enrichment and stimulating algal growth and depletion of dissolved oxygen, bioaccumulation of organic and inorganic compounds.
The observations revealed that the heterotrophic bacterial counts were very high in many locations several times of the year and faecal counts are a thousand fold above than the permissible limit.
Two incidents of mass mortality of some of the important fi-shes like mullets were recorded at the Adyar river mouth.
It is also observed that heavy load of inorganic (nitrite, ammonia, phosphate and silicate) and organic (total nitrogen and phosphorous) nutrients loads in the coastal waters, particularly at locations near to rivers discharging, untreated domestic sewage and effluents from industries.
