Coastal and transitional waters are often used as bathing waters. In many regions, such activities play an important economic role. According to the European Union Bathing Water Directive (2006/7/EC) (BWD) the concentration of Escherichia coli in bathing water exceeding 500 CFU·100 mL-1 poses a high risk for bathers' health. In order to safeguard public health, microbiological environmental monitoring is carried out, which has recently been supported or replaced by mathematical models detailing the spread of sanitary contamination. This study focuses on the problems and limitations that can be encountered in the process of constructing a mathematical model describing the spread of biological contamination by E. coli bacteria in coastal seawater. This and other studies point to the following problems occurring during the process of building and validating a model: the lack of data on loads of sanitary contamination (often connected with multiple sources of biological contamination inflow) makes the model more complex; E. coli concentrations higher than 250 CFU·100 mL-1 (low hazard for health) are observed very rarely, and are associated with great uncertainty; the impossibility of predicting the time and intensity of precipitation as well as stronger winds and rougher sea, which may be a significant source of E. coli. However, there is universal agreement that such models will be useful in managing bathing water quality and protecting public health, especially during big failures of the wastewater network.
Keywords: Escherichia coli spread; mathematical model; microbial bathing water quality.