Researchers from Ireland and Estonia built a measurement station in Anne Canal in Tartu to test real-time water quality monitoring. Scientists hope that in the future, swimmers could monitor bathing water quality in real time.

Many Tartu-dwellers are well aware of the questionable quality of water in the Anne Canal, an artificial lake which is also a popular swimming spot in the center of Estonia's second city. Blame has been variously placed on bird life, dogs, and even swimmers themselves, "Aktuaalne kaamera" reported.

Results from the recently extracted samples will be available in a few days' time, and will solve the above question from the bacteria in the water.

"We know how, based on genetic data, we can determine our own origins. Where we have come from, who our ancestors were — so basically we are doing the same thing but for bacteria. That is, based on their genomes, we determine their past, whether everything comes from the microbiome of dogs or from ducks or from humans. In short, on this basis, it is possible to scientifically come up with countermeasures," explained University of Tartu molecular ecology researcher Peeter Laas.

While water samples are constantly being taken from the canal, until now there had been no scope for monitoring water quality in real time.

Europe-wide, improving the quality of swimming water in towns and cities and creating more suitable bathing spots is a growing trend; the Anne Canal may even provide greater know-how on how to do this.

"So Tartu said at the end of the day we have quite challenging problems with the bathing water quality; we would like to know what's happening, we would like to be able to find timely data, and then in Ireland, there is a similar problem in coastal areas, but at the moment, in Europe there is a big push towards what is called 'swimmable cities' as well, so we just want to improve the urban environment, and it's unique because for the first time we're packing all of these technologies into a box," Dublin City University (DCU) researcher Ciprian Briciu-Burghina told "Aktuaalne kaamera."

The measurement station, as it is now, somewhat resembles a shed. In the future, however, the sensors should be set up much more unobtrusively, as they will be smaller in size – so much so that swimmers in the canal will no longer notice them – not to mention cheaper too.

"So the end goal is that after one year of trialing and piloting, we can just deploy a small sensor in the lake, which probably nobody will notice, but it will give the same information as the very expensive analyzers that we have," Briciu-Burghina went on.

The Anne Canal station is part of an international pilot project called LinnaSulps, which the Tartu and Dublin universities are involved in along with Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech).

In summer 2024, swimming at the canal was red flagged as a result of poor quality.

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