title: Bacteriological monitoring and sustainable management of beach water quality in Malaysia: problems and prospects.
abstract: Despite the growing demand of tourism in Malaysia, there are no resolute efforts to develop beaches as tourist destinations. With no incentives to monitor public beaches or to use them in a sustainable manner, they might eventually degenerate in quality as a result of influx of pollutants. This calls for concerted action plans with a view to promoting their sustainable use. The success of such plans is inevitably anchored on the availability of robust quality monitoring schemes. Although significant efforts have been channelled to collation and public disclosure of bacteriological quality data of rivers, beach water monitoring appears left out. This partly explains the dearth of published information related to beach water quality data. As part of an on-going nation-wide surveillance study on the bacteriological quality of recreational beaches, this paper draws on a situation analysis with a view to proffering recommendations that could be adapted for ensuring better beach water quality in Malaysia.
authors.affiliation: School of Biosciences & Biotechnology, Faculty of Science & Tecnology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia. ayokunled@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Ayokunle Christopher
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Dada
authors.forename: Ahmad
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Asmat
authors.forename: Usup
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Gires
authors.forename: Lee Yook
authors.initials: LY
authors.lastname: Heng
authors.forename: Bandele Oluwaseun
authors.initials: BO
authors.lastname: Deborah
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D001493:Bathing Beaches / Q000592:standards*; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D008296:Malaysia; D012623:Seawater