City’s popular beaches show excellent water quality ahead of tourist season
24 November 2023
The City of Cape Town is pleased to announce that Cape Town’s most popular beaches display excellent water quality results ahead of the festive season. This is based on independent analysis of water samples taken over the past seven weeks, the latest being 15 November 2023.
The City of Cape Town is anticipating one of the busiest tourist seasons in recent years, with visitors flocking to our pristine beaches to join locals in recreational activities.
This summer, visitors to Cape Town can enjoy no less than eight Blue Flag beaches, alongside a range of other popular recreational nodes. Blue Flag beaches are accredited by the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA) based on 'excellent' water quality results from festive season water sampling analysed by the independent South African Bureau for Standards (SABS) laboratory between 1 December and 31 January each year. WESSA uses 33 criteria across four categories for Blue Flag accreditation, including Water Quality, Environmental Management, Safety Services, and Education and Awareness.
The Blue Flag beaches are Bikini Beach, Camps Bay, Clifton 4th Beach, Fish Hoek, Llandudno, Melkbosstrand, Muizenberg and Silwerstroom. Pilot blue flag status was also awarded to Mnandi and Strandfontein.
Visitors to Cape Town beaches can be confident that Coastal Water Quality guidelines are being met and monitored on an ongoing basis. When a pollution incident is detected, the City has specific protocols to swiftly contain and rectify the situation. This may entail a temporary pause on swimming along a section of beach until water sampling confirms the water is safe again. Signage will be displayed in these instances to keep the public up to date.
The City's Coastal Management branch is also continuously monitoring trends at 30 key beach locations over a 12-month rolling period in addition to the weekly samples along Blue Flag stretches of beach.
Water samples are analysed by an external accredited laboratory – the SABS Lab – for the number of enterococci per 100ml, the Gold Standard for water quality analysis.
'We are thrilled to announce that the results for 147 water quality samples show excellent water quality across Cape Town's key recreational nodes or beaches. A full 95% of water samples are well below the single sample standard of 180 enterococci per 100ml. This confirms water quality is not just good, but excellent by global standards across our popular beaches.
'I want to urge the public not to fall for baseless misinformation about our coastal water quality, especially where these allegations are not backed up by scientific evidence, namely enterococci data from more than just one sample, over a period of time, at a specific beach.
'Let us all work together to ensure Cape Town is hospitable, and welcoming this festive season. Cape Town is the most biodiverse city in the world with a coastline to be proud of by global standards,' said the City's Deputy Mayor and Mayoral Committee Member for Spatial Planning and Environment, Alderman Eddie Andrews.
Cape Town's most visited beachfront, namely Muizenberg Surfer's Corner, is showing excellent water quality based on the results for every week for the last seven weeks:
| Date | 3 Oct. | 10 Oct. | 17 Oct. | 24 Oct. | 31 Oct. | 8 Nov. | 15 Nov. |
| Result | 77 | 24 | 0 | 1 | 26 | 0 | 0
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Below is the outcome of seven weeks of actual data for key recreational nodes and popular beaches along Cape Town's coastline, as analysed by the SABS for enterococci. The table shows excellent water quality where 95% of the 147 samples taken over a seven week period are well below the cut off of 180 enterococci per 100ml:
| Location | 3 Oct. | 10 Oct. | 17 Oct. | 24 Oct. | 31 Oct. | 8 Nov. | 15 Nov. |
| Big Bay | 39 | 2 | 0 | 32 | 3 | 34 | 5 |
| Milnerton Lighthouse | 22 | 4 | >150 | >150 | 12 | 17 | 3 |
| Three Anchor Bay NW Rocks | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 49 | 2 |
| Clifton 2nd | 0 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 0 | 69 | 3 |
| Clifton 4th | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 27 | 0 |
| Glen Beach | 2 | 6 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 17 | 0 |
| Camps Bay Tidal Pool | 3 | 78 | 0 | >150 | 6 | 9 | 0 |
| Logies Bay next to Llandudno | 17 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 8 | 0 |
| Kommetjie Longbeach | 6 | 11 | 2 | 1 | 24 | 2 | 0 |
| Miller's Point Tidal Pool | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Seaforth Beach | 23 | 16 | 0 | >150 | 2 | 46 | 5 |
| Simon's Town longbeach | 5 | 6 | >150 | 12 | 14 | 7 | 109 |
| Fish Hoek | 21 | 12 | 1 | 20 | 12 | 6 | 7 |
| Dalebrook Tidal Pool | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| St James Tidal Pool | 0 | 3 | 0 | 11 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| Strandfontein Tidal Pool | 5 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| Strandfontein beach | 0 | 3 | 15 | 63 | 1 | 4 | 0 |
Monwabisi Tidal Pool | 8 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 0 | 2 |
| Monwabisi Beach | 30 | 4 | 21 | >150 | >150 | 0 | 79 |
| Strand "Pipe" Surfing area | 27 | 123 | 0 | 11 | >150 | 91 | 6 |
| Strand Beach | 0 | 4 | 36 | 6 | 5 | 19 | 0
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Like every coastal city in the world, Cape Town also has some areas where land based pollution does impact on the shoreline more regularly and may cause more variable results. These sites are almost always in close proximity to a river mouth or a substantial stormwater drain that services a large catchment area with various sources of urban pollution. These areas include Diep River estuary mouth and adjacent Lagoon Beach, Disa River Mouth in Hout Bay, Else River Mouth in Glencairn, Silvermine river mouth in Clovelly and Gordon's Bay River.
To address these issues, Cape Town has a Mayoral Priority Programme focused on improving inland water quality, and driving record infrastructure investment in Water and Sanitation services.
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Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office
