Due to these many of the people are loosing their valuable lives at beaches. Our responsibility is to be create awareness about rip currents and its forecast information. Let your comments and views to improve this.
rip currents carry sediment from shore to sea but it is natural phenomenon we cannot control it
Nagalakshmi Radhakrishman yes we know that it's a natural phenomenon but the question is can we prevent it? we can collect data at long term about the hydrodynamics parameters of the beach and try to analyse and give some conclusion according to me.
Yah you are right Nagalakshmi Radhakrishnan but here is as said by Kengap Kouekam how to protect life in beaches anyways thanks for your views.
Also, Gregor C. Falk yes well said by signs we could create awareness about the ripcurrent is there or not and whether this beach is safe for swimming or not in that particular area. Yah smart mobile based app information is would be more informative for tourists/visitors. But we need to explore more media to disseminate the information how much we can in future. You have provided good information thank you for your views.
We are now in a position to forecast the rip current risk probability in India. At Space Applications Centre (ISRO), we have developed a web portal which host rip current forecast for nearly 175 beaches in Indian beaches. As Rips are generally correlated to the waves, tides and near shore bathymetry, some relationship has been obtained between rip current related rescue data and this physical phenomena. It is in experimental phase and validation is still ongoing. Please have a look into the weportal. We are developing an Android app called SAFEBEACH which provides such alerts including wave and weather related info to the public. This information would help the people to get an overall idea of the probable risky hours before venturing the surfzone. It is always suggested to enter up to the knee level and swim parallel if you caught in the rip.
https://www.mosdac.gov.in/rip_current_forecast/
Accurate forecasts are more helpful to the user community. At the same time information dissemination to users on time also very important. The effort on forecasting of risk probability of rip current at beaches is appreciable. The regular validations with real time observation will provide clear information about the rip currents.
Drowning, while performing intentional leisure / touristic water activities at beaches that are attractive to the public for their pleasant qualities, is just a public safety accident. Therefore, it would be wise to advise the water safety community to adopt thinking models and methods from Safety Science. In safety it is long well known that there is a hierarchy of hazard control regarding the effectiveness of the various safety control steps:
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1. Rip currents and their instigating waves and morphodynamics states cannot be eliminated (first step), as any human interference in the nearshore just increases the water turbulence and creates a riskier beach environment.
2. Management and lifeguards can substitute (second step) the hazardous beach (e.g., in the vicinity of a rip current) with a much less hazardous beach (e.g., on a sand bar) by herding the bathers.
3. Creating non-hazardous designated bathing areas and controlling the bathers by active “isolation & guarding” with surf lifeguards would be an “engineering control” (third step).
4. it is common knowledge in safety that any administrative controls as signs and flags at any hazardous place (workplace, traffic, medications, and food) as well as on beaches are very weak safety protective control and should always be a supplement to the higher-level controls.
5. Personal protective equipment is always the weakest hazard control and is almost not relevant in the surf.
Daniel, you have shared wonderful information on rip currents and it’s safety measures at beaches. Mainly local administrative bodies and researchers has to take lead role about this issue seriously to the common people from these currents. As we cannot stop, but self awareness about rip currents/hazardous situations at beaches is utmost important, usage of lifeguards it can be safeguarding the visitors, they should have to follow the instructions/safety measures described by the local authorities strictly before entering into the surf zone at beaches. The duties of the local authority is to contribute in creating awareness about the rip currents and protecting from these hazardous situations. Also must have to provide information in sign boards/flags and need to provide accurate forecast information for them through available local media in local as well in international languages.
Are you working on rip currents @Amarendra.?. Your queries are interesting.