aquaBio in Uruguay: advanced technology to improve water quality at Montevideo’s beaches

The assessment carried out by public officials in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, acknowledges the complexity of its water system—which includes urban catchment areas, rural watercourses, wetlands, lakes, groundwater and an extensive coastal strip—and highlights the pressures currently affecting water quality: urban growth, waste, polluting discharges and the effects of climate change.

One of the most significant challenges lies in having more frequent, operational and useful microbiological data for decision-making regarding water quality at urban beaches.

The ultimate objective of the public administration of the Uruguayan capital is to ensure that water quality is safe for the intended uses and consumption.

For this reason, it has launched the Montevideo Water Care Plan, one of the pillars of the Strategic Environmental Agenda 2025–2030.

The plan positions water as a “strategic environmental infrastructure” for health, resilience and quality of life, and sets out a comprehensive strategy focused on the protection and restoration of the department’s water systems.

At the same time, it is committed to strengthening public capacity in the areas of monitoring, urban drainage, waste management and ecosystem protection, as well as improving the availability of environmental information and promoting active public participation.

The solution proposed by Adasa is aquaBio, an advanced, continuous and automatic water quality monitoring system.

aquaBio is already in operation in Montevideo to strengthen microbiological monitoring of bathing waters and to support the city council in improving the water quality at its beaches.

aquaBio will help monitor the microbiological quality of water at beaches in a context marked by high levels of pollution and regulations requiring more frequent testing.

This need ties in directly with Montevideo’s priorities regarding automated online monitoring, advanced coastal monitoring and the development of early warning systems.

Furthermore, the Municipality of Montevideo itself has announced progress in strengthening the system for assessing the suitability of bathing water and providing the public with more timely, robust and transparent environmental information, including the incorporation of information derived from the data provided by aquaBio.

With this installation, Adasa is contributing to more robust, agile and transparent management of water quality in the coastal environment of the Uruguayan capital.

From now on, Montevideo has access to advanced technology that provides continuous, automatic and operational data on bathing water, enhancing its response capacity and minimising the risk of contamination to users’ health.

Adasa’s solution for measuring the microbiological quality of water will, at the very least, double the estimated average number of analyses, rising from 1,200 to 2,400, as well as improving the availability of data for decision-making and public communication.

In an environment such as urban beaches, where public confidence depends on comprehensible and up-to-date information, this technical improvement has a direct impact on public health, prevention and transparency.