People bathing in the seas at Boscombe could, in the future, be confident that there is no pollution.

A ground-breaking technology that provides accurate real-time coastal water quality testing could be put on Boscombe Pier.

The Environment Agency currently uses Met Office data to make pollution risk forecasts when water quality might be temporarily reduced due to rain, tide and wind conditions.

Traditionally, the only way to more accurately monitor and model water quality at a coastal site has been through expensive and time-consuming laboratory tests.

BCP Council wanted a more timely, accurate way and so, two years ago, partnered with UK SME UnifAI Technology to develop low-cost wireless sensors with AI to tackle the issue.

A two-year pilot at Poole Harbour proved successful with the project nominated as a finalist for two awards at the 2021 Water Industry Awards, and Highly Commended in the Data Analytics, Cloud and AI Project of the Year category.

Now BCP Council intends to invite businesses to tender for the opportunity to develop the project at Boscombe Pier, using the council’s Smart Place Infrastructure.

Cllr Mark Anderson, portfolio holder for Environment and Place, said: “Bathing waters in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole have a consistently high standard of water quality.

“Following our successful trials in Poole Harbour, I am really pleased that we could soon be developing a tool to provide residents and bathers with real time data on water quality at Boscombe.

“It will ensure that red flags for water quality will be based on facts rather than predictions and will hopefully cover more parameters than the EA basic bacteria count, which is a crude measure of quality.

“I believe this is one the first schemes in the country, if not the world, where AI is used to show when there is pollution present, and this will in the long term allow us to develop a new flag scheme to show water quality.”

Wessex Water is responsible for water quality in the BCP area. The Environment Agency acts as the regulator.

BCP Council and UnifAI Technology’s two-year pilot at Poole was made possible by an EU Interreg funded Two Seas project called SPEED (Smart Ports Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Development).

The technology is now being adopted more widely by parts of the water industry.

Dan Byles, chief commercial officer of UnifAI Technology said: “The Poole Harbour project has delivered a remarkable amount of value in testing hardware, AI algorithms and an innovative approach to water quality monitoring, for a tiny budget.

“All parties invested time and resources beyond the monetary budget.”