What is a water activity?

There are many opportunities within and around the city for educational activities to take place on or close to both fresh and seawater.

There is information on rivers, ponds, lakes, leats, estuaries, canals and all tidal locations in this section, on anywhere that there is a significant risk of drowning.

There is additional information on activites that are described as swimming or open water swimming.

Risk of drowning

Examples of activities that require a contingency for the risk of drowning:

• Cooling off in natural water
• Surveying and other environmental or design activities that need water or water margins
• Team building activities that take place on water, like rafting
• Low risk adventure activities that take place near water, for example orienteering where there is a choice of route participants could make and where supervision is potentially more remote for older children
• Traditional adventure activities like sailing, canoeing, windsurfing, surfingand sea level traversing (coasteering)
• Beach activities of a more leisure type
• Coastal walks Duke of Edinburgh (D of E) Bronze and Silver level expeditions
• Fishing which can be either from a boat or the shore

See the group safety at the water margins document on the Teachernet website for more details.

Providers of adventure water activities

Many adventure activities are covered by the requirements of the Adventure Activity Centres (Young Persons Safety) Act 1995, further details can be found on the Adventure Activity Licensing Authority (AALA) website. If you are organising a visit to a provider or your organisation has the capacity to deliver a water activity you can find more information on the planning offsite activities page.

Choosing a safe location for water activities

If you are buying-in the services of an outside provider for a water activity it will be reasonable to assume that the managers of that facility have a safe location to use. For activities that will be delivered by the Council's own staff that include low adventure and one-off events on or close to water it may well be necessary to consider the following factors:

• The presence of life saving equipment and services
• The ease of which a location can be supervised
• The depth of water and how easy this can be predicted if only shallow water is required
• Water quality
• The impact of severe weather on the environment, including cold water temperature
• The impact of other water users
• Access to and exiting from the water either by design or following an accidental immersion
• Obstructions underwater
• Environmental sensitivities, for example conservation areas
• If changing is required, where this can be achieved appropriately
• The area around the water should be safe from overhanging unstable cliffs or banks

Staff competencies

Leaders of coastal activities are strongly recommended to undertake the training course provided within the South West Mountain and Moorland Scheme, the Coast and Countryside Leader Award.

This training sets out the management requirements for the coast and for countryside areas that everyone needs to apply. These are generally of a lower risk than are to be found in wild country.

However, leaders need to consider that the impact of coastal erosion around Devon and Cornwall produce some areas that are as hazardous as some mountainous regions.

Supervision where there is no intention to swim

It is the party leader's responsibility to see that there are staff present who are able to deliver the risk management commitments. It is difficult to generalise and cover all situations so any party leader should have the experience to be able to adapt these recommendations to their own circumstances.

• There should be at least one person who has local knowledge that could be from a recent visit to the site
• A person who has the capacity to carry out first aid
• All staff should know how to carry out a rescue in the circumstances, generally this is not overly demanding and is as much for their safety as for the young people, for example, how to assist on slippery rocks, the correct use of life saving equipment, throw lines or natural material on site
• All staff need to know the agreed communication signals and how headcounts are to be conducted.

Further guidance on lifesaving can be found on the The Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS) website.

Other factors to consider near water

Levels of risk often rise with levels of water in rivers. In Devon we have some of the fastest to rise and fall in the country.

When checking the weather forecast look at the days before as well as the day you are out to get a better picture.

Moving water levels, above the knee, are high enough to knock people over.

More swimmers drown than non-swimmers according to statistics, often because they take on too much. Cold water temperature quickly saps their strength, or the clothing they have on makes it very difficult for them to swim as they would in a heated pool.

The quality of water varies considerably with where it runs and who is potentially ingesting it. Farms and farm animals are notorious sources of organisms that cause illness but there are industrial and amenity sources to be found in the city as well. A lot are rendered inactive by the sea but not all. E coli samples with the potential to cause serious life-threatening illness have been found on beaches around the city. Covering all open wounds, showering after water activities and seeking medical advice if flu like symptoms develop and persist is general advice for anyone who has been in water.

Life Saving Awards apply to open water swimming and the RLSS lifesavers website gives more detail. They may not always be necessary when groups are conducting river surveys or cooling off in normally shallow water.

Infections

There is a very slight risk of becoming infected whilst outdoors and particularly when in contact with stale water. It is therefore well worth bringing to the attention of all those who are likely to be exposed what they must do to prevent infection and what symptoms would be grounds for concern should they subsequently become ill. This is more important as the first signs are not likely to appear until well after the event and young people have returned home.

Further information in the form of fact sheets can be found in the documents table below.

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