Strategies for Monitoring Microbial Life in Beach Sand for Protection of Public Health

João Brandão (), Elisabete Valério, Chelsea Weiskerger, Cristina Veríssimo, Konstantina Sarioglou, Monika Novak Babič, Helena M. Solo-Gabriele, Raquel Sabino and Maria Teresa Rebelo
Additional contact information
João Brandão: Department of Environmental Health, National Institute of Health Dr. Ricardo, Avenida Padre Cruz, 1649-016 Lisboa, Portugal
Elisabete Valério: Department of Environmental Health, National Institute of Health Dr. Ricardo, Avenida Padre Cruz, 1649-016 Lisboa, Portugal
Chelsea Weiskerger: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Michigan State University, 1449 Engineering Research Ct. Room A127, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
Cristina Veríssimo: Department of Transmittable Diseases, National Institute of Health Dr. Ricardo, Avenida Padre Cruz, 1649-016 Lisboa, Portugal
Konstantina Sarioglou: Department of Environmental Health, National Institute of Health Dr. Ricardo, Avenida Padre Cruz, 1649-016 Lisboa, Portugal
Monika Novak Babič: Department of Biology, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Jamnikarjeva 101, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Helena M. Solo-Gabriele: Department of Chemical, Environmental, and Materials Engineering, University of Miami, 1251 Memorial Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33146, USA
Raquel Sabino: Department of Transmittable Diseases, National Institute of Health Dr. Ricardo, Avenida Padre Cruz, 1649-016 Lisboa, Portugal
Maria Teresa Rebelo: Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM), Department of Animal Biology, University of Lisboa, Campo Grande 016, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 9, 1-21

Abstract: The 2021 revised guidelines of the World Health Organization recommend monitoring the quality of sand in addition to water at recreational beaches. This review provides background information about the types of beaches, the characteristics of sand, and the microbiological parameters that should be measured. Analytical approaches are described for quantifying fungi and fecal indicator bacteria from beach sand. The review addresses strategies to assess beach sand quality, monitoring approaches, sand remediation, and the proposed way forward for beach sand monitoring programs. In the proposed way forward, recommendations are provided for acceptable levels of fungi given their distribution in the environment. Additional recommendations include evaluating FIB distributions at beaches globally to assess acceptable ranges of FIB levels, similar to those proposed for fungi.

Keywords: sand; recreational water; fungi; FIB; MST; monitoring program (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/9/5710/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/9/5710/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:9:p:5710-:d:1138432

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().