Alexander Reuss

Swimming and bathing environments play a crucial role in promoting health, well-being, and social inclusion. The recreational use of water bodies for play and leisure activities presents a unique opportunity for interdisciplinary water research, enabling diverse approaches ranging from chemistry and microbiology to environmental science and public health. This consensus document, developed during the XI International Conference on Swimming Pools and Spas (ICSPS, Athens 2025), highlights shared priorities for safeguarding human and environmental health in aquatic settings. Key objectives include preventing drowning, health risks, and injuries through appropriate design, effective operation, and hygienic behavior. Microbiological quality monitoring is a fundamental requirement for maintaining safety standards and must be complemented by rigorous control of chemical parameters to ensure overall integrity. The document emphasizes the need to reduce chemical use, energy consumption, and water waste while ensuring safety and comfort for users and workers. Addressing sustainability while responding to the challenges posed by climate change and technological innovation represents a key target. The XI ICSPS Consensus Document strongly advocates for a European Directive or International Regulation that provides minimum quality requirements to protect all European citizens’ public health and environment, while embracing a broader global perspective of sustainability and equity for access to waters for recreational uses. This focus is particularly relevant in the European context, where most water-related sectors are already regulated for the protection of public health, yet recreational pools and spas—despite their major socio-economic relevance and central role in tourism—remain without a harmonized framework. Addressing this gap is essential to support safe mobility, responsible leisure, and robust public health protection for all citizens. Harmonized requirements, continuous education of professionals, and innovation through digital engineering tools and artificial intelligence are essential to achieve resilient, safe, and eco-sustainable aquatic facilities. Users’ education is also recognized as a key task for pool management and competent authorities, fostering hygienic behavior, accident prevention, and social responsibility. At any age, swimming pools and spas represent an essential tool in health promotion, encompassing social, mental, and physical wellness, and supporting longevity through social inclusion and adapted physical activity. The international scientific community who conduct research on swimming pools and spas is quite specialized and multidisciplinary but rather narrow, numbering roughly 200 research groups worldwide. The ICSPS network supports progress in research and innovation by promoting effective management, safety, and quality, while also fostering a culture of awareness and responsibility. These advancements strongly advocate for the development of harmonized international policies to ensure consistent standards and sustainable protection across recreational waters in Europe and worldwide.

Circulation of pool water via a treatment plant is critical for maintaining pool water in a condition that is a safe and attractive for bathers. It is also one of the pool operations that is most costly in terms of energy used and associated carbon footprint. In this study, we compare and contrast circulation rate guidelines developed for the UK and for other northern and southern European countries and, where possible, provide an explanation of the underlying rationale. We focus on the management of turbidity-forming material and Cryptosporidium oocysts. We reveal that the parameters used to assess safe operational bathing load are relatively consistent across Europe, based on physical space requirements for bathing and other constraints such as lifeguarding. Circulation rate, on the other hand, is based on either rule-based turnover times, or a more flexible approach based on the volume of water to be treated per bather. The latter offers scope for innovation and energy savings, with the proviso that safe water is maintained for bathers. The guidance in several countries suggests reducing circulation rate when the pool is not being used by bathers. We conclude that a more progressive risk-based approach to pool management, building on these findings, offers significant opportunities for pool operators to run pools better and should be a priority for future research.

The presence of metals in hot springs has been associated with various adverse health effects. Although some elements are essential for humans, they are dangerous at high levels of exposure. There have been little studies on the presence of metals in hot springs in Colombia, therefore, laboratory tests were carried out over a period of six months (June to December, 2021), with spot samples every month in a ferruginous hot spring in the Cundinamarca region, Colombia. Tests were carried out for arsenic (As), chromium (Cr), mercury (Hg), lead (Pb), aluminum (Al), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), magnesium (Mg), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), zinc (Zn), strontium (Sr), and calcium (Ca) in the Laboratory of the Bogota Aqueduct and Sewer Company (in Spanish EAAB). Since there are no regulations in Colombia there is no regulation on the quality of hot springs, the analysis of results was carried out by comparing them with standards for drinking water and swimming pools from countries such as Canada, Germany, and the World Health Organization (WHO) as well as hot springs in Japan. It was observed that iron was the only metal that exceeded the regulations for drinking water and swimming pools.

Este artículo detalla las regulaciones en la calidad del agua en piscinas y agua potable en Alemania, Canadá y Colombia, con una comparación con la regulación existente y los estándares de calidad de las aguas termales. Canadá, Alemania y Colombia regulan que el agua potable debe estar libre de niveles inseguros de sustancias y patógenos, especificando los parámetros microbiológicos y químicos que deben seguirse. Las piscinas en Canadá, Alemania y Colombia tienen regulaciones o estándares específicos para parámetros microbiológicos y químicos que deben seguirse. Al igual que la regulación del agua potable, el agua debe estar libre de organismos patógenos para conservar su calidad de agua. Por otro lado, en el caso de aguas termales donde el bañista tiene condiciones similares a las de las piscinas, Canadá y Alemania no cuentan con regulaciones o normas específicas para el agua de aguas termales. En cambio, se aplican a las aguas termales los mismos requisitos microbianos y químicos que para el agua de piscinas según la Normativa de piscinas públicas de Canadá y la norma Din 19643 de Alemania. Actualmente, Colombia no cuenta con reglamentos o normas sobre la calidad de las aguas termales, tal como lo establece el artículo 6 del Decreto 554 de 2015.