As beach-goers prepare to spend the hot days of summer cooling off at their favorite beach, a team of researchers is making sure the experience isn’t ruined by polluted waters and possible closure.

The number of beach closures due to factors such as fecal microbes in the water has risen, and so, too, has the number of people who've turned away from their favorite swimming destinations, or worse, unknowingly gone swimming in polluted waters.

Now, the team has located computer models capable of issuing almost-immediate water forecasts, or “nowcasts,” about the water quality at their favorite swimming hole.

Considering the time it takes to get results (up to 24 hours) from a water test, leaving swimmers exposed to potentially nasty stomach bugs and the like, researchers Jie Niu and Mantha S. Phanikumar set out to determine whether computer models could correctly predict current water conditions based on past bacterial data.

Using sites located across Southern Lake Michigan to test their theory, the team looked at five different computer models predicting bacteria levels at four different sites.

While two of the computer models used complex and considerable data to successfully inform its predictions, a third model also performed well. Using a combination of two techniques (wavelet transform and artificial neural network analysis), this third model only required input about past bacterial data and nothing else.

The team believes that this model, in particular, will one day help beach-goers make decisions about where they choose to swim on a given day, informed by the almost-immediate beach condition reports.

The research is published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.