Following up on the conversation with my Mum on how dirty our coastal waters are, it raised an important question here that I think its worth finding an answer to it given the inextricable relationship between Singapore and its surrounding waters.

So the question: “How Clean or Dirty is our coastal waters?”

The definition of clean/dirty is rather subjective here if the qualitative data is collected from people. Personally, I’ve heard answers ranging from both extremities from differing sources (locals and overseas tourists of varying age groups). After all, the everyone has different perspective of cleanliness and hence, a quantitative approach is used instead by the National Environment Agency of Singapore in determining the water quality of our beaches.

As an overall guide, all popular recreational beaches’ water quality in Singapore are monitored by NEA, who adopts World Health Organisation (WHO) Guidelines (2003) for recreational water quality as a reference (National Environment Agency, 2020).

Figure 1: Classification Matrix for Faecal Pollution of Recreational Water Environment, World Health Organisation, 2003

Specifically, NEA adopted and uses a matrix as shown in Figure 1. (World Health Organisation, 2003), which consists of the sanitary inspection category and the microbial water quality assessment to assess water quality of beaches. In the matrix, 2 parameters were judged mainly the:

  1. Enterococcus counts – The levels of Enterococcus in at least 95 percent of the samples (95th percentile) must not exceed 200 counts per 100ml
  2. Susceptibility of the location to faecal influence

Enterococcus is a type of bacteria that is typically present in the gut and bowel (Enterococcus faecalis: Infections, transmission, and treatment, 2020) and its count number acts as an indicator of the level of faecal human contamination in the water. The bacteria can enter our body through wound openings and body orifice, causing potentially life-threatening infection in humans. Hence, using enterococcus count as a parameter is indeed very relevant because of the human activities involved in our coastal water bodies. 

Thankfully, the results for all 7 beaches of Singapore (Sentosa Island, Seletar Island, Sembawang Park, Changi Beach, East Coast Park, Pasir Ris Beach and Punggol Beach) have been consistently graded as “Good” for the past 3 years.

While the qualitative data reflect the high quality assurance from NEA with regards to the cleanliness of our coastal waters, I would still think twice before immersing myself into the waters of Sentosa beach. After all, with the Singapore Straits as one of the world’s busiest water way right at our doorstep, I wouldn’t be surprised if you find yourself feeling ‘oily’ after having a swim in the coastal waters.

In short, “Good” =/= “Clean”. Clean or dirty? You can judge for yourself.

References:

1. Nea.gov.sg. 2020. Recreational Beaches. [online] Available at: <https://www.nea.gov.sg/our-services/pollution-control/water-quality/recreational-beaches> [Accessed 29 June 2020].

2. Organization, W., 2003. Guidelines For Safe Recreational Water Environments, Volume 1. Geneva: World Health Organization, p.84.

3. Medicalnewstoday.com. 2020. Enterococcus Faecalis: Infections, Transmission, And Treatment. [online] Available at: <https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318337#What-is-Enterococcus-faecalis?> [Accessed 29 June 2020].